Books

The Tenth Man
The Return of the Dancing Master
All Shot Up
The Big Gold Dream
Have Mercy on Us All
The Iron Wagon
The Battle of Wagram
Sherlock Holmes: Two Complete Adventures
Have Mercy on Us All
Firewall (Kurt Wallender Mystery S.)
The Beast of Chicago: A Treasury of Victorian Murder: v. 6
The Bare Photographer
A Corpse in the Vale
Paws
Interference
Takeout
Injustice
Diamond White Crystals
The First Diary of William Reynolds: Setting the World Ablaze
When Kindness Fails
The Tidemaster: The Second Tavistock Allan Mystery
The Reluctant Warlock
The Million-dollar Chip
The Edge of Death
A House to Let (Hesperus Classics)

The End of Nature: Tenth Anniversary Edition

Average customer rating:

Classic
Rave for 'The End of Nature'
Wonderful Book, A Little Outdated
Prophetic and life changing.
The time is coming

The End of Nature: Tenth Anniversary Edition
Bill Mckibben
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Human Geography | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Environmental Science | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Conservation | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

General | Conservation | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape:Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks (Crown Journeys)
Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth (World As Home, The)
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change
Silent Spring

ASIN: 0385416040
Release Date: 1997-08-05

Book Description

Reissued on the tenth anniversary of its publication, this classic work on our environmental crisis features a new introduction by the author, reviewing both the progress and ground lost in the fight to save the earth.

This impassioned plea for radical and life-renewing change is today still considered a groundbreaking work in environmental studies. McKibben's argument that the survival of the globe is dependent on a fundamental, philosophical shift in the way we relate to nature is more relevant than ever. McKibben writes of our earth's environmental cataclysm, addressing such core issues as the greenhouse effect, acid rain, and the depletion of the ozone layer. His new introduction addresses some of the latest environmental issues that have risen during the 1990s. The book also includes an invaluable new appendix of facts and figures that surveys the progress of the environmental movement.

More than simply a handbook for survival or a doomsday catalog of scientific prediction, this classic, soulful lament on Nature is required reading for nature enthusiasts, activists, and concerned citizens alike.

Customer Reviews:

Classic.......2007-06-19

As relavent today as it was in 1989 and when combined with Deep Economy gives you something to ponder.

Rave for 'The End of Nature'.......2007-05-13

Bill McKibben's beautifully written and cogently reasoned analysis of how humans are damaging the world we share with all other life is must-reading. He shares with readers a respect for Nature---truly wild, untouched Nature---that is personal, emotional, reverential, and spiritual. That respect is contagious. We need to hear voices like his. His book strengthens our will to take the difficult but essential steps to slow global warming. He urges us to be good stewards of the earth.

Wonderful Book, A Little Outdated.......2004-11-09

This would've been a five-star review if this book were about 10-12 years newer than it is. In some ways, McKibben's extended essay on global warming has aged very well. His central thesis that nature is ended (not destroyed but removed of majesty or even neutered) by the overwhelming pressures of human industrial society and human overpopulation is as relevant now as it ever was, the truth of this argument more evident every day. And global warming, the central thread of his argument, is even more pressing today, even though we in the United States are doing even less about it. Though some of his worst fears have yet to come true, the reality of global climate change is bad enough, as underscored by the recent report on rapid climate change in arctic regions.

In other ways, though, the book seems dated. A lot of what McKibben writes about is uncertain. "It could be that in 50-100 years..." or "our models are very uncertain but..." and so on. The last 15 years have seen a lot of research in this area and a a great deal of refinement of our climate models, such that we know have a much more certain picture of the realities of climate change. This is real. It is happening, and it's happening quickly. Unfortunately, the greater uncertainty in our understanding of this at the time McKibben was writing undercuts his message somewhat, that we must learn to curb our desires and live more humbly if we wish to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. Were his argument bolstered by more modern research, I think he would have a much easier time outlining some real steps we as a society could take to deal with global warming.

Still, the issues McKibben raises and the ideas he presents for how we can deal with them are as pressing now as they were in 1989, perhaps even more so. Anyone who is at all concerned about global warming, the environment, or even just living beyond the next 30 years or so would do well to read this book.

Prophetic and life changing........2004-02-23

In the ten years between the time THE END OF NATURE was first published in 1989 and reissued in 1999, we experienced seven of the ten warmest years in recorded history (p. xiv), which establishes Bill McKibben as a global warming prophet. And the thing is--we're still not getting it. "We live in the oddest moment since our species first stood upright," McKibben writes in the new Introduction to his environmental classic, "the moment when we are finally grown so big in numbers and in appetite we alter everything around us" (pp. xv-xvi). The United States alone dumps 15 percent more CO2 into the atmosphere than it did ten years ago (p. xvi). Arctic glaciers continue to retreat, ice grows thinner, and the sea level steadily rises (p. xviii). In short, "this buzzing, blooming, mysterious, cruel, lovely globe of mountain, sea, city, forest, of fish and wolf and bug and man; of carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen--it has come unbalanced in our short moment on it" (p. xxv).

McKibben's basic argument is that our relationship with the concept of "nature" as something separate and wild has changed, and in our pursuit for "a better life," we have totally wrecked the environment (p. 48). By changing the weather, for instance, we have altered every spot on earth, depriving nature of its independence, leaving "nothing but us" (p. 58). Stated differently, we have ended nature's separation from human society (p. 64).

Because nature provides us with a sense of comfort, reading THE END OF NATURE is not a happy experience. McKibben has issued a wake-up call, and his book should be required reading for any global-warming skeptic, or for anyone who drives a SUV. As Thoreau said, we are living lives of quiet desparation--we enjoy the consumptive, easy life. However, as McKibben's compelling argument demonstrates, such a lifestyle is incompatible with the well being of our planet. He encourages us not only to change the way we act, but also to change the way we think by adopting the radical notion that we learn to respect nature "for its own sake," as a "realm beyond the human," and give it "room to recover" from the damage we have done (pp. 174-77). This book was a life changer that prompted me, in part, to move from the concrete, urban sprawl of Phoenix, Arizona to Boulder, where there is a respect for open space, and where it is still possible to have a humble relationship with nature.

G. Merritt

The time is coming.......2003-06-29

It's been a while since I read this book, and it has been one that has always stuck out in my mind as being one of the better environmental books that I've read. One thing that the author touches upon is the relevance of time; things take time to happen, sometimes a painfully long time, and this is often difficult for humans to understand. Nature has progressed at its own pace from the beginning; at times its course has been checked, but in the end Nature has rebounded and rebalanced itself. For much of this process, humans have been a part of it; possessing only "primitive" technologies they were obligated to rely on Nature; but over the course of the last few millennia, the human race has manage to evolve to a point where we can dominate and control Nature to our own benefit. This of course has had an adverse effect on Nature, and during the 20th century we began to experience the consequences of this state of things. But in many cases, the change has been subtle, and as a result there has been a bitter debate raging as to whether the concerns of the envirnmentalists are in fact legitimate. Naysayers will argue that things really haven't changed all that much, that when one looks at the evidence that is presented, it doesn't look like much is happening at all. They do so because they have the inherent human trait of seeing things from their own perspective, and fail to see how we are subtly having a negative impact on the environment; the end, or whatever you want to call it, may not come in the year so-and-so in our lifetime, but it will invariably come if we continue on as we are.

Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey, Tenth Anniversary Edition

Average customer rating:

Adventures in the closet

Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey, Tenth Anniversary Edition
Martin Duberman
Manufacturer: Westview Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Gay & Lesbian | Subjects | Books

General | Nonfiction | Gay & Lesbian | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Stonewall
American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism
The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915
Crack In America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice
Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, and Places (RAND Studies in Policy Analysis)

ASIN: 0813339545
Release Date: 2002-05-07

Book Description

Martin Duberman gives a witty and searingly candid account of his journey to acceptance of his homosexuality despite the efforts of psychotherapists to "cure" him of it.

This is the tenth anniversary edition of Cures, Martin Duberman's best-selling account of his attempts to"cure" himself of his homosexuality through therapy, medical treatments, and faith healers. Duberman tells of the double life he led as a young professor at Princeton, passing as straight by day and going into the gay clubs of Trenton and New York by night, which continued through the 1950s and into the 1970s, until he came out as a gay man around the time of Stonewall. For the new edition, Duberman has written a new preface chapter and an afterword, bringing his life (and, more broadly, the gay experience in America today) up to date, discussing such issues as gay rights, same-sex marriage, gay scholarship, and AIDS.

Customer Reviews:

Adventures in the closet.......2006-02-05

Martin Duberman has earned his stripes at the forefront of gay scholarship and civil rights. During the 1960s, he was known for his historical scholarship, especially his biography of Charles Francis Adams (son of President John Quincy Adams and father of Henry Adams); he also enjoyed fame as a playwright, primarily for "In White America," his play on race relations. After the mid-1970s, he became both a gay rights advocate and a chronicler of gays and lesbians in recent American history.

Yet he wasn't always an outspoken pioneer of sexual liberation. For the first two decades of his adult life, he lived in a partially open closet. At best, he was contritely open about his homosexuality to selected friends and colleagues, but, like many other men and women, he had convinced himself that his identity was not only wrong but could somehow be controlled or even cured. This memoir recounts not only his struggle to accept himself but also the societal and "professional" attitudes that reinforced the view of homosexuality as a pathological condition.

Much of the book details his excruciating and even comical adventures (a bizarrely appropriate word here) in psychotherapy, particularly with one psychologist whose own neuroses and lack of professional integrity, it eventually becomes clear, should have barred him from dispensing advice to patients, sick or healthy. Duberman pulls no punches, and he is most critical (and retrospectively ashamed) by some of his own exploits and by his many righteous or hypocritical stances taken against those who were comfortably or experimentally out of the closet. Often Duberman avoided self-evaluation, escaping into the comforting workaholic demands offered by his professional career or into the fleeting release provided by prescription drugs and various affairs with hustlers.

Duberman's is a fascinating life--a man with three successful careers and two successive personal lives. Every once in a while his fascination with his own academic career carries him away; portions of the book might strike readers as a curriculum vitae in prose form. More valuably, however, he sets his memoir in its historical context, examining how social and medical opinions were eventually transformed by both events and research (much of which was unknown to Duberman until years later). For some readers today, it's hard to imagine the pressures and impossibilities of being gay half a century ago. For many others, the struggle continues, and this book may provide them with both comfort and counsel.

Average customer rating:

A Great Novella
A wonderful book with a fast-paced story
This was Excellent
"The story of a man who bought his life, the tenth man."
Just a reading

The Tenth Man
Graham Greene
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

War | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

A Burnt-Out Case (Twentieth Century Classics)
Loser Takes All (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
The Comedians
The Captain and the Enemy (Penguin Classics)
England Made Me (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

ASIN: 0671019090

Book Description

In a prison in Occupied France one in every ten men is to be shot. The prisoners draw lots among themselves - and for rich lawyer Louis Chavel it seems that his whole life has been leading up to an agonizing and crucial failure of nerve.

Customer Reviews:

A Great Novella.......2007-05-30

This is a short novella that was written originally as a film script for MGM. It is not a novel. It is an excellent short story or novella. As a novella it is a masterpiece.

This is the first book that I read from Greene, and I was very impressed with his style, the structure, the prose, and the overall thrust of the book and his writing in general.

In this present novella, he presents a two part story of a man who makes a bargain in jail to save his life. It is set during World War II. The story takes place near Paris and then in rural France. The man trades his home and his money for his life. The first part takes place in jail, and the second part is after he is released from jail. From the jail and the bargain to trade money for his life, the story advances in time to the post-war period and we see how the now penniless man copes with his new situation and how he deals with the people that he knew before the war, and the people that now live in his old house.

There is a certain level of depression and desperation transmitted by Greene through his writings so that we have empathy and sympathy with the man who has lost all of his material wealth. Through the loss, he manages to maintain his moral integrity. There is a high level of drama and a surprise ending.

This is an excellent novella and a good introduction to Green.

A wonderful book with a fast-paced story.......2006-06-07

The beginning of the story is quite dull, but after a while you can't stop reading. The story is also written in an easy language, so you can easily read it as a non-native speaker.
The end is not very satisfying and the characters are flat, but that doesn't really matter because of the action in the book, I was never bored.

This was Excellent.......2006-04-29

Greene's writing is phenomenal. He has few words, and packs in oceans of meaning. I've read other authors who publish some 10 books in one series and are still writing- and nothing happens for entire books. This is the opposite type of writing. This is the kind of book that forces you to put the book down after a chapter to contemplate what your life is like and where it is going. And each chapter runs about 3 pages long. I will be dwelling on the final page, the final paragraph, for a long time.

Greene knows life. He has a depth of wisdom that he brings in to the characters that goes beyond the simple ethical dilemma of whether or not it is permissable to purchase one's life at the expense of another. Sometimes, dying for another is the easy part. It is the dying every day that is far more difficult. Less glorious, less noticed, but far more eternal.

"The story of a man who bought his life, the tenth man.".......2005-01-31

One of Greene's "entertainments," this short novel written in 1944 was hidden away for nearly forty years before being discovered in the MGM files. Written as the idea for a film, the novella is a fine example of Greene's style, as finished and polished as any of his more complex novels.

Set in France during the war, the story concerns a group of thirty Frenchmen imprisoned by their German occupiers and then told that they must decide for themselves which three of the thirty men will be executed. One of the men who draws a marked ballot for his own death is a wealthy lawyer with considerable property who offers his entire fortune to any man who will take his place. One young man accepts, drawing up legal papers which give his newly acquired property to his sister and mother before he is executed.

The remaining three parts of the novel deal with the return of the now-penniless former owner to "his" house after the war, where he meets the dead man's sister and works as a servant under a new name; the arrival of an imposter who claims to be the former owner; and the showdown between the former owner and the imposter.

As is always the case with Greene, the dialogue is taut, revealing character and plot simultaneously, with no extraneous chat. The main character, like so many others Greene depicts, is a weak man whose bad choices, in this case his decision to buy his own life, have led to the complications which become the story. Living a lie, Chavel/Charlot faces a crisis of morality in which he must decide what, if anything, he can do to redeem himself to atone for the life-or-death decision he forced upon another man. The imposter who arrives at the house claiming to be the former owner is described as resembling a devil, and the showdown between him and the real former owner is seen as the struggle between goodness and evil.

Filled with ironies and absurdities, the novel maintains considerable suspense until the dramatic, tour de force of an ending. Too short to allow for much character development, the novella conveys a strong message within an exciting little morality tale filled with sharply observed details--simple without being simplistic. Mary Whipple

Just a reading.......2004-05-24

This short story is not a thriller but will keep you reading all the time, if you read this book in a long flight you could end it in that flight.
The story don't have any message and the end is not excellent but is good enough, of course nobody knows what anybody will do in case that he knows that is going to die, you can't say that Chavel is guilty of what he did.

Average customer rating:

Amazing
Vajra, a diamond blade...
Clever
Few can point you in the right direction better
A spiritual classic...

The Tenth Man: The Great Joke
Wei Wu Wei
Manufacturer: Sentient Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

General | Other Eastern Religions | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Comparative Religion | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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All Else Is Bondage: Non-Volitional Living
Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon: Reflections of a Pilgrim on the Way
Posthumous Pieces, Second Edition
Open Secret, Second Edition
Why Lazarus Laughed: The Essential Doctrine, Zen--Advaita--Tantra

ASIN: 1591810078

Book Description

An esssential work of this enigmatic sage, draws from the ancient traditions of Buddhism, Taosim, and Advaita Vedanta.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing.......2004-04-21

Another masterpiece by Wei Wu Wei! To be sure the insights in this book may seem difficult to get at, but insights are not the point of Wei Wu Wei's books. They offer us inspiration on our journey towards the truth, not answers or guides to life. The Tenth Man is a book everyone should read. Whether you think you have it all figured or not, this book is sure to open your eyes.

Vajra, a diamond blade..........2003-11-12

It might be a little more immediate to get hit in the head with certain shamanic herbs...but if language can do damage to the matrix's sleep, this book should do it for you. Personally, I thought the author's brilliant elucidation of the prajnaparamita sutras, in just a few lines, was worth selling your field to buy.

If you're here, this book is probably for you. If you get it and it isn't, hey...what have you lost? lol Be warned: "Heavy Deconstruction."

Clever.......2003-09-26

Wei Wu Wei was very clever.

The Tenth Man (like the superior Ask the Awakened) is a collection of short essays, poetry and dialogues expressing Wei Wu Wei's profound understanding of Ch'an, Taoist and Advaita philosophies.

The writing is abstruse, uncompromising and very challenging at times.

For sure there is insight to be found. But too often the cleverness gets in the way.

Few can point you in the right direction better.......2003-08-22

The author's cryptic, aphoristic style in short expositions and dialogues of not longer than several pages at a time will challenge and then stop the mind. I can only describe the state induced as one of tension...a feeling that there is just a thin veil separating one from Profound Understanding that, while thin, is very difficult to penetrate. However, with perseverence, intuition may reveal to you what words can never convey. But words can point you in the right direction and few authors I have come across do this as skillfully. I regard all his books as classics that are at the top of my shelf, so to speak. Fans of Douglas Harding, Tony Parsons, zen, advaita, Ramana Maharshi, taoism will probably agree with me. But if they don't, that's fine too.

A spiritual classic..........2003-06-07

It is very hard to describe this book, but suffice it to say that Wei Wu Wei clearly understood the "negative way" he writes about in this book (part of a series of outstanding books including "Ask The Awakened"by this mysterious mystic).

The case of the animals versus man before the King of the Jinn: A tenth-century ecological fable of the Pure Brethren of Basra (Library of classical Arabic literature ; v. 3)

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The case of the animals versus man before the King of the Jinn: A tenth-century ecological fable of the Pure Brethren of Basra (Library of classical Arabic literature ; v. 3)
Ikhwan al-Safa
Manufacturer: Twayne
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0805781617

Average customer rating:

Tenth Man Down
Chris Ryan
Manufacturer: ARROW (RAND)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GPESLG

America's Tenth Man: A Brief Survey of the Negro's Part in American History

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America's Tenth Man: A Brief Survey of the Negro's Part in American History
Dt. Ira deA Reid
Manufacturer: Commision on Interracial Cooperation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000QFRHO6

Average customer rating:

Really good
Tenth man down
Well Hard!

Tenth Man Down
Chris Ryan
Manufacturer: ISIS Audio Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

General | Literature & Fiction | Books on Cassette | Formats | Books

Unabridged | Literature & Fiction | Books on Cassette | Formats | Books

Thriller | Mystery & Thrillers | Books on Cassette | Formats | Books

General | Books on Cassette | Formats | Books

Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

Action & Adventure | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0753107740

Customer Reviews:

Really good.......2004-04-10

This book is truly as hard as nails, it is truly outstanding.
the story is full of surprises and if you think you have it right someothing else happens, many plot turns.
you never now how it will go further, you have no idea what's next.
Mr. Ryan certainly knows how to keep the tension high, it's a real pageturner, i couldn't put it down and i read it in less dan two days!
the story is very well writen and certainly worth a read, buy it if you like action!
Well done mister Ryan.

Tenth man down.......2001-05-03

Tenth man down is the best book I have ever read its a cracker breath taking and "as hard as nails"

Well Hard!.......2001-01-09

Simple. Exciting. Straightforward. And just bloody well gets on with it. Someone described it as 'hard as nails' and they're absolutely right. I've read two of Chris Ryan's books (also Kremlin Device), and he is easily the most pithy bone crunching action writer around. In fact, he reminds me of a young Wilbur Smith. Add to that his real understanding of SAS type covert operations, mercenaries, power-crazy cannibals and every other type of pleasant evil-boosted character you can think of - and you'll quickly demand "Geordie' to soon start thinning them out at her Majesty's service. Ryan's writing is so stark and minimal it's a bit like someone whispering an hair-raising tale straight into your ear. A real crackerjack. Ryan writes it straight. So don't expect happy every-lose-end-tied-up-endings! A totally recommended read for anyone fed up with that pansy tripe dished out from the other side of the pond! Keep at it Chris - no one does it better than you mate!

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The Tenth Man + The Third Man
Graham Greene
Manufacturer: Book Club Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The tenth man,: A new play
Paddy Chayefsky
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006D8JIQ

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