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Emmet Fox wrote in the Christian Gnostic tradition, but his inspiring words will benefit people from all traditions. This book is a collection of writings compiled from pamphlets and includes sermons and meditations on a wide variety of subjects. The author's brilliant insights are vividly demonstrated by his psychological interpretation of Biblical passages, for example his sensible explanation of the 91st Psalm in the chapter titled "The Secret Place", where he convincingly shows that the psalmist knew about the individual's two minds: the conscious and the subconscious. Like the other great 20th century metaphysicians such as Florence Scovel-Shinn, Joseph Murphy and Ernest Holmes, Fox had a wonderful gift for conveying ancient spiritual truth in simple language that everyone can understand. He deals with issues like reincarnation, faith, scientific prayer, cosmic law, life after death and the practice of the presence of God in a most gripping and engaging manner, showing the true meaning of biblical passages in the light of psychology. My favorite chapters include (a) The Yoga Of Love, in which he confirms that there are many paths to the great goal, but that the pathway of love is the shortest and the easiest (b) The Wonder Child, about the indwelling presence of God, and (c) The Lord's Prayer, demonstrating what a carefully constructed formula this prayer is for the development of the soul (d) The Good Shepherd, a meditation on Psalm 23. Some chapters are introduced by quotes from the Bible, the Koran and poems by Bulwer Lytton, George Meredith and Wordsworth among others. The book as a whole is deeply spiritual and highly inspiring while practical at the same time. Ideally it needs to be studied, not just read once, and will certainly contribute to making the reader's life more rewarding and fulfilling. Fox understood the wellsprings of life and how the individual can achieve a richer and happier life by choosing the right thoughts.

This is one of the most wonderful and powerful books I have ever read. If you are looking for answers about the nature of God, what is prayer and how does it work, who was Jesus and what was he really trying to teach us and what is the key that unlocks the deeper meaning of the bible; this is the book to read. Mr. Fox is the most profound writer in that he is able to relate the most complex ideas in an easily understood way. His love and excitememt of the stories and events of the bible are evident as he brings this medium alive to the reader. Never boring, but most of all totally relevant to living in today's world. Any book by Emmet Fox is a feast for the soul. This one will change your perception about everything you've ever known about the bible, spirituality and God! You'll never be the same!

I was given a set of Fox's books 17 years ago. I read this book first and in it, found the way to begin my own search for the truth of "being." The best of it is, it isn't just theory or philosphy that seems to make sense -- it works. Fox doesn't give a distinct method of working, he says to find your own way of working. It isn't a religion. It isn't dogma. When he says working, he means praying effectively.

Don't you tend to think of prayer as begging a supreme being for good luck? Don't most religions seem to truly be the "opiate of the masses?" Political structures, actually.

Try "The Golden Key." I've had so many serious problems melt into the nothingness that they really are. As Fox says in the first page, "This mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin, misery and despair .....and solve your problems, smooth our difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements, and place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity."

It works. But keep in mind, you will apply these principles and your life will change wonderfully, and you will want to tell everyone you know that they can do the same, especially when you see those you love suffering. But most won't be interested, you'll see the most people want to hold on to their problems. It's the old saying, when the student is ready the teacher appears. I was ready 17 years ago and this book came into my life. I am happy, healthy, successful beyond my wildest expectations -- really!! -- I have more to look forward to every day and life is a wonderful experience for me.

I have discovered that there is always more and more to discover in this wonderful universe, that there is so much more than anyone can ever dream of!

I experience peace of mind more than I ever have before. This is not to say that every day in my life is perfect, but each day is pretty darned close to perfect! And when I let my thinking sink to a level where negativity and bad experiences begin coming into my life, I have learned a practical method of raising my conciousness back to the level that I best experience life.

And this isn't a book that just helps you take on a philosphy that helps you carry your burdens, this is a practical method for dissolving negative conditions. The things Fox offers here can be the key to a gateway that you must travel for yourself. It's easier than you think! It's wonderful.

During her "Scandalous Life" (1800's), Jane Digby was often written about in the press and provided foder for the tea room gossips for over 50 years. The stories seldom had more than a grain of truth but her ability to live her own life outside of the conventional standards of her day needed no embellishments. I have read other books and accounts of her life but Mary S Lovell has now set the standard that the other biographers will be judged. Her attention to details and access to the volumes of diaries and letters brought this biography its validity. She presents Jane's life without moralizing and judging her actions. Noone could make up a story with the twists and turns found in Jane's biography. After the episode with Isabel Burton(who tried to capitalize on Jane's story and her brief acquaintance with her when she thought Jane has died), must have left Jane Digby very cynical of biographers but I believe that she would have been very happy with Mary Lovell's. What greater compliment can an author garner from their subject? I will add my lament about the "out of print" status of this biography here in the states. I was thrilled to find a copy displayed casually in the biography section of a village bookstore in Ashburton,Devon, England while I was visiting the area with friends. The cover was bent and battered but it was their last copy. They told me it would take a few days until their next order arrived. The title was changed to "A Scandalous Life", The Biography of Jane Digby published by Fourth Estate,London. I bought the battered copy and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have also added Mary S.Lovell to my list of favorite biographers!.

I have read this book and the only thing Scandalous about is is that the publisher has not reprinted it! The herstory of the Middle East has many intriguing women who have done remarkable things. These women like Jane Digby, loved the desert no less than many of the "heroes" we all can still read about today. Yet their travels are scarcely cited. Jane Digby's romantic trysts may have stunned her peers, but today her story is fascinating. Visiting Damascus, travelling to Palmyra, each had such a different impact knowing I was seeing what she saw over a hundred years ago. In a region where the dominance of males, Islam and the harsh desert life is well documented, it is a shame more interested readers cannot learn why a western woman would chose it as her home in the 19th century. The author stays away from judgements about Jane Digby, and presents her as honestly as she was-a rebel of the heart.

When the then Pamela Digby Churchill (later to be Pamela Churchill Harriman) shocked British and European society with her string of marriages and romantic alliances, she was actually following more in the footsteps of an ancestor than blazing new ground. Over a hundred years before Pamela romped her way through Europe and America, the Honorable Jane Digby, Lady Ellenborough was embarkening on a series of affairs that drove her from England and eventually to the desert where she spent her final years.

Mary S. Lovell could have potrayed Jane Digby as a heartless tramp or made her a cartoon maneater that wouldn't be out of place in a Jackie Collins novel. At times, Jane Digby's life does seem larger than life and more like a daytime soap opera. Her lovers included crowned heads of states and even her own beloved cousin. Her final years were spent as the wife of a Beduoin chief, performing the traditional female duties while the tribe was traveling. Luckily, Mary S. Lovell is a carefully biographer who sorted through masses of documents to find the truth behind the rumors and legends.

Along with the legacy of her scandals, Jane become a mother several times. Her children, mostly seen as more annoyance than objects of affection, where left with their fathers when Jane moved onto her next adventure. Tragically, one of her daughters succumbed to madness and two of her sons died in childhood.

If you adore biographies or have come across the name Jane Digby in your reading, "Rebel Heart: The Scandalous Life of Jane Digby" is must read.

Unlike the Hollywood film Bat 21, Whitcomb's book provides in-depth coverage of entire rescue effort of Bat 21, from the pilots who flew the rescue sorties to the staff and intelligence officers who planned the operation behind the scenes to the Navy Seal team who worked the effort from the ground. Anyone interested in why the SAR mission expanded so greatly during the Vietnam War and why rescues are so critical to the morale and welfare of the air services must read this book. A tour de force!

John Sherwood, author of Officers in Flight Suits: The Story of American Air Force Fighter Pilots in the Korean War

The lone survivor (Bat 21 Bravo) of a six-man crewed American warplane shot down by a surface-to-air missile parachutes near the DMZ and seeks cover to await recovery. Heavy clouds obscure visibility, but other than that the search and rescue aircraft crews have no reason to believe that this won't be anything but a moderately easy pickup.

Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Jay Crowe commanding an Air Force rescue helicopter drops through the clouds heading for the survivor when enemy fire comes up from all directions. The dashboard begins to disintegrate. Crowe and his copilot struggle to control the helicopter and clear the area. The crew is amazed at the scene below. North Vietnamese Army trucks, tanks, guns, and soldiers are everywhere. Bat 21 is trapped between two enemy divisions barreling across the borders in a full offensive to conquer South Vietnam. Still, the rescue attempt goes on.

As the author of "Coast Guard Action in Vietnam," I am pleased to read, not only a darn good true book about the Vietnam War, but, one that brings out the fact that Coast Guardsmen were active in that long engagement. Flying combat search and rescue was only one of their numerous missions. For example, LORAN, the electronic navigation system used to keep Bat 21 pinpointed and to place ordnance on enemy positions, was installed in the theater and manned by the Coast Guard.

Do yourself a favor, get both "Bat 21" by William C. Anderson and "The Rescue of Bat 21" by Darrel D. Whitcomb. Read them in tandem. Read "Bat 21" first. It puts you with the survivor on the ground evading capture for twelve days. Then read Whitcomb's book. It pulls back the camera to take into view the entire panorama of situation, equipment, and people, that went into this remarkable rescue exploit.

When you start the reading make sure you have a block of uninterrupted time because you may not want to stop until--the end.

For years my family has wondered what happened during this period of the conflict. I was eight years old when my brother, Bruce Walker - Covey 282 Alpha, was declared MIA. This book gave my family and I a real view of what happened to him. This is something the government was never willing to do. I'm thankful to Darrel Whitcomb for this well researched and well written book detailing the rescues and attempted rescues during the Easter Offensive.

Bryan Magee has the marvellous power to arouse the interest of the reader in his books. He does it again in this one on Schopenhauer.

He explains clearly the place and the importance of Schopenhauer in the history of philosophy, the strenght and modernity of his ideas, and his deep influence on later philosophers and artists. He also criticizes vigorously some aspects of his work and life.

Magee shows that Schopenhauer built his worldview on the transcendental idealism of Kant. But he went further by describing the real nature of Kant's 'thing in itself' (the noumenon), which he called rather unfortunately the 'will'. For Schopenhauer, the entire world of phenomena in time and space, internally connected by causality, is the self-objectivation of an impersonal, timelessly active will. It is an unassuageable striving, which means continued dissatisfaction for the individual.
Schopenhauer noticed a flaw in Kant's reasoning that we could only access to the 'thing in itself' through our sensory and intellectual apparatus. We know one material 'thing in itself' subjectively: our own body.

The idea of the 'will' is very modern, because it anticipated Darwin's evolutionism, Freud's unconsciousness and Einstein's holism (everything is energy).

Magee explains magisterially all aspects of Schopenhauer's penetrating worldview, like the defective intellect of mankind, because intelligence is only a late and superficial evolutionary differentiation, developed for the promotion of animal survival.
His investigation of human behaviour is based on what people do in fact, not on what they 'ought to do'. His conclusion was that what traditionally had been considered moral behaviour turned out to be self-interest.
For Schopenhauer, art is not an expression of emotion, but an attempt to convey an insight into the true nature of things. It must have its origin in direct perception, not in concepts.
Magee stresses rightly that Schopenhauer was one of the few philosophers who integrated sex in his speculations. For him, sex is the 'very process whereby the will to live achieves life. The urge towards it is the most powerful of the will's demands, next only to the brute survival of what already exists'.
He shows also his virulent atheism ('As ultima ratio theologorum we find among many nations the stake'), his misogyny and his interest in Buddhism.

His criticism of Schopenhauer is also very important and to the point.
Schopenhauer denies mankind free will. But if there is no free will, there is no morality.
More importantly, he notices that Schopenhauer didn't live a life of someone who believed in a world of only unrelieved pessimism, dominated by the inherently evil metaphysical will. His life contradicted a part of his philosophy!

This very rich book contains also excellent explanations of the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling, Vaihinger and Frege, as well as brilliant demonstrations of the influence of Schopenhauer on Nietzsche and Wittgenstein (the Tractatus).
Magee gives us also a very stark argument against solipsism.

The one point on which I disagree with Magee is the following comment: 'This is not the same as to say that these material objects are fully and completely us: that is another matter.' (p. 121)

This sometimes ferociously driven apologia pro Schopenhauer (and Kant) is the best possible presentation of a philosopher. Magee convinced me to read Schopenhauer's main work. I didn't do it until now, because I was influenced by G. Lukacs.
A book not to be missed.

Just having read Magee's brilliant book about Richard Wagner -- THE TRISTAN CHORD -- I decided to check out his book about my favorite modern phlosopher. I don't have too much to add to what others have said, except to say that if you're not going to take the time to read Schopenhaur, then this is perhaps the best way to become acquainted with his ideas, which still have relevancy almost a century and a half after his death. Just as Schopenhauer was an unusually clear and gifted writer among philosophers, Magee possesses the same qualities as an explicator. Furthermore, his analyses of Schopenhauer's postumous influence really helps contextualize his importance historically (Sigmund Freud, who stole some of his best ideas from Schopenhaur, considered him one of the five greatest men who ever lived. There is also much in Jung -- not to mention Albert Einstein -- that has its origins in Schopenhauer).

Bryan Magee is an ideal candidate for the role of expositor of Schopenhauer. One of Schopenhauer's defining characteristics is his passion for the arts; it is a passion that Magee shares. Schopenhauer is as good a writer as you'll find among major philosophers, and Magee is an easy and graceful stylist himself. Moreover, Magee is a bit of an outsider. And Schopenhauer, for all his appeal, has never quite made it to the first team among philosophers. Indeed, one of the most intriguing points about him is that he seems to have exercised far more influence over artists: Turgenev, Proust, Mann and (most of all) Wagner. Indeed, as a kind of afterthought, Magee offers a "conjecture" that a Schopenhauerian substrate underlies Dylan Thomas' great short lyric, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower ..."

It's a lucky convergence because Schopenhauer certainly needs an introduction. Not because of the style: as I said above, Schopenhauer is a wonderful stylist, exactly not what you expect from a 19th-century German. But if Schopenhauer did not end quite in the mainstream of western philosophy, he certainly started there. He venerated Kant and he hated Hegel. He set himself the task of finishing or correcting Kant, without ever modifying his admiration for the master. This means that to understand Schopenhauer you need to know something about Kant. And here, Magee does a wonderful job. Magee's introduction to Kant would, with minor emendation, stand pretty well on its own. His exhibition of how Schopenhauer fits into the Kantian framework is equally deft.

In the same vein, he offers an indispensable strategy for reading Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer is one of those authors who wrote only one book "The World as Will and Idea." The standard edition is two volumes: a first volume that he wrote as a self-contained work, and a second, which counts as a kind of "extension of remarks" that developed over the rest of his life." But before his great work, he wrote a dissertation, "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," which Magee declares to be "a minor philosophical classic." It is, at any rate, an integral part of Schopenhauer's lifelong project, and a reader of the major work will do well to have the dissertation (or at least Magee's summary) behind him. A couple of other "independent" essays help to fill out of the frame. One of Magee's many helpful courtesies is that he tells you just what and why.

This book is so good in its own right that one is hesitant to seem to criticize Magee for not writing even more. Still, Magee's account did whet my appetite to know more about how Schopenhauer fits into the tradition of German thought to which he made himself such an outsider. That would be a project in its own right, but you do get a bit of it in the second-best book about Schopenhauer that I know of: Rudiger Safranski's "Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy." But hey-read them both, and with luck, they will carry you on to Schopenhauer himself.

This is perhaps the most enjoyable of Plato's dialogues, and one of the most enduring.

Plato imagines his mentor Socrates, the comic playwright Aristophanes, and other Athenian luminaries of the Golden Age met for a dinner party and a night of discussion on the nature of love. The various guests present their positions in manners ranging from thoughtful to hilarious, but all of this is but an appetizer for the main course: Socrates' concept of Eros as the fuel for the soul's ascent to the Divine, as revealed in Socrates' reminiscence of his own mentor, Diotima, the woman of Mantinea. At the end, a drunken Alcibiades breaks in upon the festivities to reveal Socrates as an avatar of the very divine Eros which he praises.

Robin Waterfield's Oxford translation is one of the best. He captures each speaker's individual idiom, a major translational feat in itself. That he is able to do so and also render the text into lucid modern English is a further coup. The Oxford edition also includes an extensive introduction, very helpful notes, and a complete bibliography.

The Symposium is great philosophy, great literature, an intimate peek at the social life of one of western civilization's formative eras, a work of spiritual inspiration and transformation, and, not least, a wonderful read. Most highly recommended!

The symposium is Plato's famous dialogue on love. He brings together some of the greatest minds of Athens and together they debate the nature of Eros, the parentage of Love, and the Divine. Aristophanes, the comic, explains the human desire to unite with another using his favorite device: humor. Socrates, for whom Plato obviously has enormous admiration, gives us more pearls of wisdom, this time concerning love, beauty, and the ascent of man. Even the great general and statesman Alcibiades makes a cameo toward the end scene of the dinner-party.

At the very least, we learn about the Greek concept of Love. From this book we may garner a far deeper understanding of Eros than we might have previously hoped. This is the finest of Plato's works, in my opinion.

The Symposium will continue to tower among Western literature as a work of truly insightful genius. Buy this book and be prepared for enlightenment.

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Plato's "Symposium" is the story of Agathon's dinner party where conversation takes place with a small group of men, who recline, eat and drink around a table offering their views on Love. This story is an amazing account of how intelligent and yet so different a culture the men from ancient Greece were compared to our society today. Each speaker has this most amazing ability to tell two stories at the very same time, an creative artistic movement of what love 'is' in each and every story. applying and , metaphorically. intertwining a cultural, mythological story of the gods, giving far deeper meaning. In addition to this, the love relationships and sexual nature of these men also permeate an entire cultural feel to the story, enveloping a radical differentiation from our de-mystified and de-enchanted world back into a once existing world of substantial meaning and profundity.

Phaedrus, speaks first and relates how love is the greatest good, the beautiful, is shameful of ugly things and how only lovers are willing to die for one another.

The second speaker, Pausanias, applies two types of love, one Aphrodite, a common base love working at random with men's feelings, for money, for loving physical bodies, boys, men and women. The other type of love, from a much younger goddess, being a higher type, the heavenly, who only loves other men and boy love, but this is not physical body love but from affection of the mind of virtue and wisdom..

Aristophanes has the hiccups, so it is Eryximachus, a doctor, who speaks third, applying the idea of love as a double love; "for bodily health and disease are by common consent different things and unlike, and what is unlike desires and loves things unlike." p.82 The god of art was said to implant love as a healing art, all such love guided by this god. "It is quite illogical to say that a harmony is at variance with itself or is made up of notes still at variance." "So love as a whole has great and mighty power, or in a word, omnipotence ."

Aristophanes, the comic writer, gives a moving account of Love as a absolute human need, a desire for completion to the point of each person once shaped differently being cut in half, taking our current shape, in need of the other to complete the whole of what we once were. "For first there were three sexes, not two as at present, male and female, but also a third having both together," and they were violent, strong and forceful and would even attack the gods. So Zeus and the other gods held a meeting and decided to cut them in halves and make them weaker. From then on, they were sexually drawn to one another, both heterosexual and homosexual, reasons all due to the way of the cutting of the halves.Lesbianism and boy to man love is freely spoken of and justified according to this story of the gods. His moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. For Socrates found such a romantic explanation of love as untrue to what love really is and what love contains, as it does not contain all the beauty and good.

The fourth speaker, Agathon gives a moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, it is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. "For all the gods are happy . . and love is the happiest of them all being the most beautiful and best . . the youngest of gods." In his speech, love is every good, virtuosos and beautiful thing.

The last speaker, Socrates, found such a romantic explanation of love to be untrue, for what desires good, virtue and wisdom is only something that does not contain such, something lacking, and therefore lacking it desires such things. Love only desires what it lacks. Love is neither beautiful nor ugly. "To have right opinion without being able to give reason is neither to understand nor is it ignorance. Right opinion is no doubt something between knowledge and ignorance."

It is so interesting how common and free sexuality and homosexuality were, how each man present commented on the beauty of the young men in their glory of youth. Alcibiades, jealous of Agathon, also a young beautiful male, makes a moving speech how Socrates refused his love and how other like young men, also were moved with his amazing wisdom and prose.

While women are generally discounted, and the bonding of affection in male love was considered a higher love by Pausanias, Socrates explanation of love, by far the most profound, was one he received from a woman named Diotima. Here, as another reviewer has stated, shows Plato's the egalitarianism and wisdom, like that of the beauty and ultimate goal of Love.

Later a group of men crash the party and the drinking really gets started. Some leave, while Socrates stays all night, never loosing integrity from his drinking and leaves with all his integrity.

Riveting stories of the injustice imposed on women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a young woman I worked in this mysterious country and knew of some of the atrocities the women had to endure. A new book called "Single in Saudi" by Genia has recently been published and gives a different perspective on life in Arabia,as it is the story of a single American woman breaking all of the rules and getting away with many of the things Sultana raled against in her books.

These books never cease to amaze, enlighten, sadden, and thrill me. I finally bought the Trilogy set after borrowing the three individual books from friends. I cant get Princess Sultana out of my mind and I am empowered to help the plight of women in Saudi Arabia. I recommend this book to every sex and race, as it will open your eyes to issues that are so topical in current events today with war looming in the Middle East.

I couldn't put the book down. The horrific realities of women's life is Saudi Arabia captured my mind not only at the time I read the book. It is impossible to comprehend how the interpretation of the muslim religion could be used to put and keep the Saudi women so low and down. Opens your eyes to the realities of a life and culture so different, makes you think, and is something I will never forget. The book is very well written. It is one to keep and to give to read to your friends.

Unless a person has been isolated in Siberia I think everyone has heard of the Mel Brooks hit musical "The Producers". Written by Brooks and Thomas Meehan it is probably the biggest hit on Broadway in the past 50 years. Tickets are unavailable until July 2002 and "prime" seats are fetching $480. Is the show worth it? You bet and so is the book. And it is only ...
The book is a wonderful coffee table volume full of wonderful photographs from the production, rehearsal, casting and out of town tryout. There are stories from the stellar cast such as Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Roger Bart, Gary Beach, Brad Oscar and Cady Huffman. Madeleine Doherty relates her hilarious audition as a little "old lady" and Brad Oscar's rise from a swing/understudy to the permanent part of Franz Liebking when another actor was injured.
All of the lyrics and most of the book are included Act by Act. The lyrics for some of the songs that were deleted are hilarious. With Mel Brooks heavily involved in the book, we get to know how this valentine to Broadway was created and how the original 1968 film came to be.
Miramax Books is to be given a standing ovation for the gorgeous design on this publication.
If you have seen "The Producers" in New York as I did one month ago, this book is a wonderful souvenir and a necessary addition to your bookshelf. If you haven't seen it yet, it is still a wonderfully enjoyable volume. Anyone interested in Broadway or musical theatre will pore over the pages for hours.
I highly recommend it and it would make a great gift.

As I've written elsewhere, if you can't get a ticket to this, the greatest Broadway show of all time, here's what you should do, courtesy of Amazon.com.

1. BUY THIS BOOK. It contains all of the lyrics, super pictures, and more important, not only the entire script, but the entire chronology, from its inception as a movie to creating the stage story to slapping together the first few songs to nervously hosting the first previews in Chicago to its blockbuster grand opening at the St. James Theater in New York! It doesn't get more comprehensive than this!

2. BUY THE ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM ON CD. This contains every song, from start to finish, sung by the award winning cast. The lyrics are here too.

3. BUY THE DVD/VIDEO, "Recording The 'Producers' - A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks." This is the closest you can get to seeing the musical, albeit not on stage. And don't be fooled by the liner notes. This isn't ONLY the 85 minute version that aired on PBS, it has extra footage that clocks the package at around 1 hour and 40 minutes!

I saw the show in October and I'm going back to New York to see it again in March. I've NEVER been this INSANE about any entertainment product (books, films, music, staged theater) in my LIFE.

With all three items -- the book, the CD and the DVD/video -- you get a pretty good idea of what makes "The Producers," with its spectacular mix of merriment and mirth, mayhem and satire, so great! It deserves all of its hype. You can't oversell it!

Every song is a show-stopper, a throwback to the riffs that feel like a "best hits" package from the greatest musicals ever made. A little bit of Cole Porter, Gershwin, vaudeville and classic dance melodies reminiscent of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly (e.g., "Gotta Sing-Sing!" -- as in prison!), with lyrics that are so happily vulgar and irreverent that you're lucky you're not more doubled-over in pain from laughing so hard if you could only see the girls wearing pretzels on their heads and others doing the swastika "circle" march (visible via a tilted mirror toward the audience), done in Busby Berkeley style! Heck, there's even a bit of an homage to the Andrew Sisters (e.g., "He's a Hot-sie-tot-sie Nazi! Woo-woo, he's a hot-sie-tot-sie Nazi! Woo-woo! The Fuhrer...is in a FUROR!")...

Sadly, this original cast won't be together much longer, but the traveling show officially begins next year (it'll be in San Diego from December 2002 to January 2003)! So the wait won't be as long as we thought!

To recap -- get the CD, the DVD/Video and THIS BOOK! Then you'll save some big-time $$$ until the show arrives in your backyard! Whatta deal!

Caution: This book contains vulgar three and four letter words in the libretto and lyrics of The Producers. The intent behind the use of these words is humor, rather than prurience.

The Producers is by far the best book I have ever read about the development and staging of a Broadway show. Anyone who likes Broadway, comedy, or Mr. Mel Books will find this book to be irresistible! For those who cannot get tickets to The Producers (or have tickets for 2003), this book is your best bet to enjoy this marvelous musical in the near future. I strongly recommend this book as a gift item for those who don't mind some salty language and references.

This book contains reminiscences of the show's development from the first contact by Mr. David Geffen to Mr. Mel Brooks to encourage Mr. Brooks to create a Broadway musical version of the 1968 motion picture of The Producers by Mr. Brooks. Each personal statement is accompanied by beautiful, lighthearted candid photographs of the people involved. One of the most touching sections involves how Ms. Susan Stroman was chosen to direct and choreograph the show after her talented husband and artistic partner, Mike Ockrent died, and Ms. Stroman was still in mourning. The stories about the first reading for producers will leave you with a tingle of excitement. After the first act was read, Mr. Rocco Landesman offered the St. James Theatre. Fourteen producers present eventually invested in the show, after Mr. Geffen had to bail out due to other commitments. The accounts are full of one-liners to keep you laughing as you learn. For example, turning a movie with two songs into a musical with 16 more is described as being "not unlike trying to translate it from English into Serbo-Croatian."

Although the feedback was good all along, everyone kept waiting for something to go wrong. But it never did. The most negative thing anyone said about the show was Mr. Brooks. "It's not funnier than Blazing Saddles." When the New York Times Review came in, it was an amazing rave that began with "How do you single out highlights in a bonfire?" You then get some background on sets, costumes, and winning 12 Tony awards.

From there, the book presents the libretto of the show and the lyrics of the songs. The only thing that's missing is the musical score. But you can sing to yourself, and enjoy the many wonderful photographs of the 22 person cast (featuring Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom -- with full allusions to Ulysses intended). This is an annotated version, so it includes notes about what the draft versions had called for and the reasons why certain changes were made. Having seen the changes, I must agree that the decisions were unerringly improvements. Some of the false starts are pretty funny, too, such as the planned beginning with a "Hey, Nebraska" spoof of a well-known Broadway musical.

If you are one of the few people who doesn't know the story line, let me give you a brief summary without spoiling it for you. Max has just had a flop ("Funny Boy" based on Hamlet). Accountant Leo notices that Max made a small profit and speculates that a lot of money could be made by over raising money for a flop on which little was spent. Max falls in love with the idea, and draws Leo into a plot to do this. They find a story called "Springtime for Hitler" which they feel will offend practically everybody, and hire a director to make an outrageous version. Max raises the money by romancing elderly female investors. The rest of the story takes a number of unexpected twists that will delight and entertain you. One of my favorite lines from the show comes in Act 1, Scene 1 when Max comments that "the reviews come out a lot faster when the critics leave at intermission."

The appeal of the story is that it ultimately upholds positive values while poking good-natured fun at everyone involved in the Broadway community. Since no one is spared by the satirical spear, no one can be terribly offended. There's a lot of cross-dressing to spread out the small cast that gives the show some of the sophomoric appeal of a Hasty Pudding theatrical, which is well captured in the photographs.

Creativity experts say that you can find improved solutions by trying to do the opposite of what you've been trying to do. So the notion of trying to make something bad . . . to find something good . . . is a well established one. Turning something from one form into another one is also advised. So you can learn new ways to solve old problems, even from Broadway musicals!

John Poole continues to do our nation and the military great service. Phantom Soldier is the third in an evolution of books--Last Hundred Yards, One More Bridge to Cross--that gets it right on future battlefield tactics. This book must be read and implemented.

What if there was no Northern Alliance to provide ground forces in the current war in Afganistan? If the U.S. does not commit ground forces to provide the necessary dimension, to force an enemy to look two ways, then the scenario in the future would be like the 99 war in Kosovo. Here, a Serbian Army withdrew unscathed from the area of operations, despite three months of constant bombing. Poole's book provides the blue print to reforming the U.S. ground forces that has to be a necessary part of the 21st Century "Transformation." We will pay with lives if we do not reform our military from a Second Generation warfare force to one that can deal with threats in the 3rd and 4th Generation (...) (...).

Phantom Soldier is the natural follow-up to John Poole's book "Another Bridge to Cross".
In Phantom Soldier he continuous his effort to explain the right way to fight - this time with more clarity and easy-to-read style. I find the way he mixes the old, and still true, theories of war fighting with real world examples to be most helpful.

Every person slightest interested in learning the ways of war is probably familiar with Sun-Tzu, but in this book the author also introduces us to some of the less know Asian theorists like Sun Bin. For the uninitiated "The Art of War" by Sun-Wu (or Sun-Zi) seams to be the reference work to read, but the truth is that "The Art of War" is only one in the ancient collection "Seven books of war". A less well-known work, the Liu Tao, or Six Strategies for War, was also highly regarded by rulers of ancient China. The six strategies (Civil, Military, Dragon, Tiger, Leopard, and Hound) each deal with a different subject and corresponding plan for success.

In Phantom Soldier the Battle Arrays of Sun Bin are explained so they are applicable to modern units right now.

I don't agree with J R Dunn on his critic on John Poole's writing. J R Dunn referrers to him self as a military historian, if he really is this, he should know better than to confuse efforts that use history as example with absolute truths. I doubt that Mr. Dunn ever participated in a battle or even a fire-fight. If he had he would know that fighting is complex and very fluid, you cannot make science of art. What John Poole really does is to try and make use think the right way.

If a force with all its modern weapons, support, intelligence assets and the overall technological superiority would be able to adopt this way of thinking it would be unstoppable.

If you keep one eye on history and the other on the future - you will be blind on one eye.
If you keep two eyes on the future you will be blind on both.

This is an analysis of how the eastern way of war trumps the American/western way of war. It also shows why people in Iraq are shooting at US troops rather than hailing them as heros. I've mailed a copy to George Bush. It's too bad that the military culture that he represents is incapable of understanding the importance of this book. The result of this inability is graphically portrayed in John Shey's two classics ACHILLES IN VIET NAM and ODYSSEUS IN AMERICA.

The Charge of the Light Brigade on the 25th October 1854 was one of the three famous engagements that formed the Battle of Balaklava. The Charge, the most famous of all military blunders, was barely over before the process of transforming it into myth began. Accusations, counter-accusations, legal actions and patriotic poetry created more obscuring smoke and dust than the infamous Russian guns. Cecil Woodham Smith traces the careers of two of the major players: Lords Lucan and Cardigan, the brothers-in-law from hell, whose vanity, arrogance and (at least in the case of Cardigan) incompetence, inexperience and crass stupidity, contributed to the fatal Charge. Almost 40 years of peace, and the reactionary influence of the Duke of Wellington, had left the British army in a parlous state of unreadiness and bureaucratic confusion when the call came to defend Turkey against the Russians. The choice of the aged, gentle, inexperienced and unassertive Raglan, as leader of the expeditionary army, only made a bad situation worse. (For a rather more sympathetic portrayal of Raglan, as victim of an inefficient military system, criminally disorganised commissariat and unreasonable government, see "The Destruction of Lord Raglan" by Christopher Hibbert.) A more recent study, "The Charge" by Mark Adkin, provides a detailed and well-illustrated account of the events leading to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Adkin challenges traditional views , including parts of Cecil Woodham Smith's account. Particular attention is given to the role played by Captain Nolan (the messenger). Adkin suggests that Nolan may have deliberately misled Lucan and Cardigan as to Raglan's real intention. Whatever the truth, which is of course unknowable, "The Reason Why" is a genuine classic and an excellent introduction to a fascinating subject.

Woodham-Smith presents, in minute detail, the wages of placing social rank over experience, and even competence. British military history follows a disturbing trend. War starts, Brits get trounced upon, influx of fresh talent and new ideas comes (along with, sometimes, timely intercession by allies), British return to triumph. Woodham-Smith attributes this pattern to the notion in the higher ranks of the army (a notion espoused by the Duke of Wellington himself, pip pip!), that nobility ensures, if not competence, at least loyalty.

The price of this notion, is, of course, massive death, but because the massive death does not happen to the nobility, nobody important really minds. This is one reason the Charge of the Light Brigade, with which _the Reason Why_ primarily deals, was so different, and worthy of eulogizing in prose and song (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by the way, appears absolutely nowhere in this text)--those dying, those paying the price for the Army's obsession with aristocracy, were aristocrats themselves.

Woodham-Smith manages to trace the careers of two utterly unsympathetic characters--Cardigan and Lucan--in a fascinating manner. This is no small feat, considering the reader will probably want, by the end of _the Reason Why_ to reach back in time and shake both of them, and maybe smack them around a bit.

Again, Cecil Woodham-Smith proves herself a master of the historian's craft, and produces a well-researched, thorough and driving account of what is probably the stupidest incident in modern military history.

The Crimean War changed so much about how war is waged--the treatment of prisoners and wounded being tops on the list of reforms brought about in the wake of the debacle. _The Reason Why_ is an excellent account, and should be required reading for anybody with even a remote interest in military history, or European history in general.

The Reason Why remains the classic study of the intriguing and sadly ludicrous episode in military history known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. The author, coming from an Army family and relying heavily on the writings of officers, largely neglects the experience of the private soldier and concentrates on the main characters in the drama. The story is dominated by these extraordinary personalities, serving as a reminder that war is an inherently human drama. On a second level, it is a criticism of the privilege system of the British Army of the mid-nineteenth century. In retrospect, one is hard pressed to believe such a purchase system could have ever won a victory at Waterloo. Intolerant aristocrats with no experience in battle, paltry leadership skills, and maddening unconcern for the soldiers under their command, bought their commissions. The Charge of the Light Brigade illuminated all of the faults of the system and proved that bravery alone was insufficient for victory. While human blunders led to the debacle that was the Charge of the Light Brigade, the British military system was intrinsically to blame.

The heart of this book concerns the relationship between society at large and the military. Military leaders feared nothing so much as public scrutiny, for widespread discontent could lead to political interference and, indeed, political control of the army. Whether in dealing with the incorrigible personalities of Lords Lucan and Cardigan or in covering up the series of blunders that resulted in the sacrificial ride of the Light Brigade, the military leadership acted with the overriding principle of preserving the Army from governmental control.

The embarrassments of the Crimean campaign proved uncontainable. A great source of difficulty was the incompetence of the Army staff; rank and privilege were held to be superior to actual experience. When these difficulties led to humiliation and defeat, the commanders' concern was not with the men they had lost nor the future of the war effort; to the exclusion of these, their main concern was that bad publicity would appear in Britain, that the public would hear of the lack of success, that the House would begin to ask questions of the military leadership, that the press would begin to criticize the Army. This great fear of political interference was realized in the aftermath of the Crimean War. The author portrays this as the one positive effect engendered by the War effort. A new era of military reform was born in Britain, Europe, and America. Experience now became a prerequisite for command, and officers were trained in staff colleges. The author's final point is that, above all, the treatment of the private soldier changed as the military system was humanized to some degree. Her assertion that at the end of the Crimean War the private soldier was regarded as a hero seems rather bold, but it is clear that he was no longer seen as a nonhuman tool of his commanders' designs.

I started the process of researching German-American internment for a English-101 assignment. I found the author's web site and various other materials on internment. My schooling consisted of learning about Japanese relocation, and as 40-year-old adult, I never knew of the internment of others, called enemy aliens of the United States.

Locating Mr. Jacobs' book in my library, I read a fascinating account of what the author and his family endured during World War II, and after the war with the expatriation and repatriation to Germany.

Interviewing Mr. Jacobs for my research paper, culminated in a better understanding of what our government did, and may do once again with Arab-Americans in the attempt to prevent future terrorism. It is tragic when a government does what it thinks right at the time, but then refuses to apologize for the injustices committed against its own citizens.

I recommend this book to every German-American, as well as all Americans who never learned the whole story during their formative education.

Mr. Art Jacobs, the author of "The Prison Called Hohenasperg" writes his story out of love. Love of life, country, friends, and family. Unfortunately, Art, at the age of 12 was separated from these very basic essentials of life.

He narrarates this true story detailing his youth in school, boy scouts, and support for his ball club, the Brooklyn Dodgers. However, life will soon change for young Art and his family as his father is illegally taken from them and interned at Ellis Island as a "Nazi criminal". This is just the beginning of the Jacob's family internment journey that takes them from Ellis Island, to the Crystal City Texas Internment Camp, then to Germany where Art spends his 13th birthday in the Hohenasperg prison.

I believe that his intention and motive for writing his story is NOT for compensation, revenge, or to denounce the United States. As I read his story, I felt his sincerity, compassion, and most importantly his intention to MAKE THE TRUTH KNOWN. Because of Art's story, The United States Government has an opportunity to acknowlege Art and other internees that wrongdoings to Americans of German decent did occur.

I recommend this hard to put down, well documented book to those who are interested in WWII history, post WWII Germany, internment life, as well as those interested in reading a boy's burning desire to overcome and succeed under any circumstance to come back to his "Country 'tis of thee".

... A young boy marched back and forth before the hangman's tree with his hands above his head, ordered not the speak, turn his head the wrong way, or even sit to eat - unless he wanted to be hanged - treated like the worst criminals the world has known - and called a little Nazi - He was an American Boy Scout! One day of such treatment, even if corrected immediately, is inexcuseable. We must stop thinking that the United States make mistakes, but the rest of the world makes criminal acts.

I believe this book should be an eye-opener. We need to be concerned that our government can give such power to one man such as Edward J. Ennis, that our military could treat even criminals the way this child was treated, and that most Americans still know nothing about the treatment of German Americans during World War II.