Product Description
Reducing poverty is the greatest challenge facing Latin American policymakers today.In the 1990s, macroeconomic reform helped put much of the region on a growth trend, yet the ranks of the poor continued to swell.Today, most countries have levels of poverty that far exceed expectations given their levels of development.

Portrait of the Poor paints a whole new picture of poverty in Latin America.Low incomes are just the silhouette of the problem. Learning more about why the poor people earn less makes for a more complete portrait.This book finds the key in unequal access to education, credit and the other income-generating assets of human, physical and social capital.Evidence from case studies on Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru supports this finding. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is part of the Our Name in History series, a collection of fascinating facts and statistics, alongside short historical commentary, created to tell the story of previous generations who have shared this name.The information in this book is a compendium of research and data pulled from census records, military records, ships' logs, immigrant and port records, as well as other reputable sources. Topics include:

• Name Meaning and Origin
• Immigration Patterns and Census Detail
• Family Lifestyles
• Military Service History
• Comprehensive Source Guide, for future research

Product Description
Charlie Outis had his brain frozen a thousand years ago, but he wakes up a slave to a machine in a world of genetically amplified neo-sapiens, andrones, and autobats--fortunately, Charlie has a plan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

An odyssey on exhibition of Mars
"Swollen with dreams. I am a blue animal that trembles softly. I am a mind without a body calling you. Do you see my smile in my words, sad and evil? Can you hear me? Sad because I am utterly alone. Evil because I am dead and yet I live. I want to say a story - my story. And more. Say a body. Do you hear me?" (Mr Charlie's brains from the book)

After quite rattling start we find a story of Mr Charlie who arranged a cryonic suspension of his head in the hopes of seing what future holds: all its promises. Unfortunately during thousand years of his suspension, a lot has happened. His brain was sold on the black market and used as sex tool for illegal purposes. And after he is finally revived, the laws of the current time grant him no rights. Legally dead, he is sold to a mining corporation as a wetware to cut the costs. This way the corporation didn't need to develop a costly AI to manage the operations out in the asteroid field. Munk, an android manufactured by the Maat sect of humans that provide robots carry latent human abilities in form of contra-parameter programming, picks up Mr Charlie's cry for help signal from asteroid mine. Munk convinces female jumper Mei Nili to follow him on rescue mission. They fight the corporation, seek refuge on Mars, gang up with daily news reporter and start planning journey to reach city of Solis to resurrect Mr Charlie in a cloned body. The brains are Munk's and Mei's only ticket to the city of Solis.

Three (3) stars. Written in 1994 the books deviates from the standard Science Fiction literature a great deal. The idea or concept of death, resurrection, legal matters, news feeds and pinch of scientific religious sects are glimmering crystals that start to shine together as the story is progressed. Mei Nili has lost everything and fears no death, disembodied Mr Charlie fears loss of senses above all, the news reporter couldn't care less as long as he gets great holovision story for SoftCopy, a greedy tour office organizator is ready to sell everyone off as he believes the "brains" are taunted anyway and a possible terrorist threat, a gender less interrogator of a mining company has no soul, robot that turns out human, the list goes on. All these in 184 pages. Something has to give. And that's the cup overfilling. There are too many characters and society aspects that they are like slinging cords in the wind that you can't get a hold of. The Maat, humans, beyond comprehension (super intelligent), and the rest of the humanity that has divided into (roughly) city size sects tilts the 1000 year future so far away (think more 1 000 000 million year in future), that one gulps at times to see if you the writer really wrote that. If everything is possible, then what is the point to the story? Mr Charlie is not really at center after the start, but put to the back, while various other characters are used as showcases of the humanity in this future. The brains itself in this society, or the archaic human behind it, doesn't really interest anyone; nor the future society. Mr Charlie's revival at the end is not the climax to wait. It's in the attitudes of the varied, money painted society. This is a good book, but it would have needed triple the pages to carry out in full. Expect an odyssey on exhibition of Mars.

Highly creative and highly readable sci-fi
I am in awe of Attanasio's creativity, in plot, character development and language. He paints with words. Mister Charlie is a cryogenically-frozen brain from our time.... forward a thousand years, give or take... this legally dead item is revived and "abused" only to be rescued by a created machine programmed to be fascinated by archaic "homo sapiens sapiens" and his sidekick, a disillusioned Earthling contemporary to that future. Great action but plenty of psychological development as well, great images of future non-Terran colonies - loved it!

mildly interesting, but plodding
Soltis was one of several books I recently read as I recuperated from a recent sickness. Of the collection, it was the least interesting, but it entertained me enough that I still finished it.

The most annoying thing about Soltis was the use of the present tense. I understand why it was used (I won't explain why here, because it seems to be important to how one interprets the book), but just because I understand it doesn't mean I can still tolerate 200+ pages of it. I was also put off by the flowery prose used in some sections. Again, I understand why it's there, but sometimes I think the author was on "olfacts" similar to what some of the characters use.

That being said, the author's vision of the future was pretty solidly built in the small number of pages, and I would probably appreciate the author's ideas about humanity if I read it several more times. However, the story wasn't interesting enough for me to want to re-read, so I probably won't do so. Perhaps I am going to miss some of the author's ideas of what it means to be human, but then again, a good book should be able to convince a reader to read it again. Solis is only a decent book that contains some ideas that deserve to be covered in a better, more accessible book.

Brilliant with a wonderful conclusion
I don't understand criticism of this book regarding the ending - it was poetic,it was exciting - it was perfect.So much SF of today is all premise and no payoff,that is a valid criticism of many other books but in my opinion it just can't be levied against this one.

Exciting, packed with ideas and emotions and can be read in a weekend.Wax me mind, Mr Charlie!This book kicks arse.

Better than the "Big Names"
It is amazing what celebrity can accomplish.Attanasio has to be one of the greatest sci-fi writers around but who do we hear about - Azimov (very formulaic and mechanical), Clarke (who has published some of the best/worst potboilers around) or any of the other "Founding Fathers" of science fiction.

How else can one praise this magnificent work of art - the characters (including the brain) are all interesting, the story is one we've heard before but is handled so well that it seems refreshingly new, the plot is especially well designed but even better is the execution.Dialogue was perfect and the writing was just this side of poetic.

The long chase scene and the switches in scenery seemed to fit in effortlessly in the plot.Great book. ... Read more

Product Description
Dental Management of Sleep Disorders focuses on the dentist’s role in treating patients with sleep problems, chiefly sleep disordered breathing and bruxism. A practical clinical book, Dental Management of Sleep Disorders highlights the background to these problems, discusses the dentist’s role in their diagnosis and treatment, and outlines clinical strategies and guidance. The book features a full discussion of the use of appliances, an overview of current treatment modalities, and investigates the relationship of sleep disorders to dental and orofacial causes. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume contains two unusual and appealing satirical works by the well-known European philosopher Kolakowski. The first, Tales from the Kingdom of Lailonia, is set in a fictional land.Each story illustrates some aspect of human inability to come to terms with imperfection, infinitude, history, and nature.The second, The Key to Heaven, is a collection of seventeen biblical tales from the Old Testament told in such a way that the story and the moral play off each other to illustrate political, moral, or existential foibles and follies. ... Read more

Product Description
Life is lonely for 13-year-old Jane Riggs in the historical New England village that is her new home - until she discovers a four-hundred-year-old book of spells that really works. Guided by the ghost of the witch who wrote the conjure book, Jane embarks on a terrifying but glorious quest for magical power. Her ambition is to contact her mother, dead these ten years and remembered only in photographs. For such a great prize, Jane is willing to risk much among the weird creatures she conjures out of the spirit world. But she will need more than courage when her magic follows her to school. After an evil spirit fox steals her classmate's soul, life suddenly gets very complicated. Coming of age among dark, elemental powers while not missing a day of seventh grade is not easy. And the answers Jane needs for growing up don't seem to be in the conjure book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Young Adult novel from a top notch author.
AA has such a wide range of writing 'styles' that it really didn't surprise me when he dove into the popular young adult genre.It's a basic read for AA, but it has good character development and really keeps you reading, I suppose I finished this one in about 3 nights.

If you're looking for a good book that touches on the offerings like Harry Potter, or even the recent China Mieville 'Un-Lun-Dun' delving into young adult fantasy, check it out.

Plus, it's still a good read for us seasoned AA readers that really like his 'heavier' stuff.

An excellent read
I thought that The Conjure Book was a well written, fast-paced novel that brings Mr. Attanasio's unique voce to the young adult market. The twelve year old heroine had believable reactions to unbelievable events in the story (talkng cats, gnomes, spirit foxes, etc. The choices she makes help her to grow and mature. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading well wrtten, carefully thought out stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Tedious but Interesting
First, I found this book to be rather tedious.The book tends to ramble, repeat, wander, and so forth.It is not a well structured discourse.

However, the book contains a number of interesting (and almost prophetic) insights into German mistakes in past foreign policy.These tend to be prophetic in the sense that Hitler repeated those exact patterns he identified as mistakes as the WWII progressed.I suppose hindsight is always 20/20.....

Similarly the book is sheds some light on the view of race that Hitler held.He discusses racial differences between the Spartans and Persians and assumes that the differences there, not differences of social organization or military technology, made the major differences in war.Hitler's single-minded focus on race and lebensraum together help to explain not only the developments regarding the Holocaust but also major strategic blunders in the war.For example, he believed that the Russians were incapable of building states that could withstand invasion, so he expected them to fall quickly when attacked.

On the whole I would recommend this work to anyone interested in history of WWII.

The Fuhrer-to-Be and His Scapegoating of Jews and Slavs

This book, never published until after WWII, sheds further insights into Hitler's thinking, expanding upon some of the themes of his MEIN KAMPF.

National Socialism had undoubtedly been an actual form of socialism, as reiterated by Hitler: "I am a socialist. I see no class and no social estate before me, but that community of people who are linked by blood, united by a language, and subject to the same general fate." (p. 44). "A new nation must arise from this work [the National Socialist movement] which overcomes the worst evils of the present, the cleavage between the classes, for which the bourgeoisie and Marxism are equally guilty." (p. 79).

Interestingly, Hitler toyed with the possible future of Communism, and this turned out to be prophetic: "To be sure, it is conceivable that in Russia itself an internal change within the Bolshevik world may ensue to the extent that the Jewish element, perhaps, could be crowded out by a more or less Russian national element."(p. 133).To a degree, this later happened. Jewish Communists were expelled from their Parties for their "cosmopolitanism" and "Zionism".

We sometimes hear the claim that the German people voted for Hitler, in free elections, without realizing the fact that he would start a major war. Or, at worst, Hitler would be content with a little border war to rectify the "injustices" of Versailles. In actuality, the scope of Hitler's aggressive ambitions had long been obvious. The Fuhrer-to-be planned a war of massive conquest and extermination against the Slavic peoples, as indicated by his following statements regarding lebensraum (in addition to those earlier in MEIN KAMPF): "An additional 500,000 square kilometers in Europe can provide new homesteads for millions of German peasants...The only area in Europe that could be considered for such a territorial policy therefore was Russia." (p. 74; see also page 145). (Later, the Nazis spoke of "resettlement" of Jews and Slavs. In time, "resettlement" evolved into a euphemism for extermination.)

Proponents of Holocaust uniqueness sometimes claim that, whereas there was nothing that Jews could do to change their standing in the eyes of the Nazis, Poles could redeem themselves by undergoing Germanization. This is fallacious, as Hitler made obvious (as he had done earlier in MEIN KAMPF): "The National Socialist movement...knows no Germanizing or Teutonizing, as in the case of the national bourgeoisie, but only the spread of its own people. It will never see in the subjugated, so-called Germanized, Czechs or Poles a national, let alone a folkish, strengthening, but only the racial weakening of our people." (p. 45). "The folkish state, conversely, must under no conditions annex Poles with the intention of wanting to make Germans out of them some day. On the contrary it must muster the determination either to seal off these alien racial elements, so that the blood of its own people will not be corrupted again, or it must without further ado remove than and hand over the vacated territory to its own national comrades." (pp. 47-48). (During the later German occupation of Poland, the "Germanization" of selected Poles was actually a re-Germanization of ethnic Germans who had previously become Polonized.)

Hitler's virulent anti-Semitism had a somewhat different emphasis in this book than it had in MEIN KAMPF. In the latter, he spoke of Jews as parasites that live off the hard-earned wealth of other peoples. In this work, Hitler portrayed Jews as intentional destroyers of the nations' intellectual elites, either through direct extermination (as in Bolshevism) or through indirect means (notably the bastardization of the races, as done in western nations)(p. 105; 212-216); all ostensibly done by the Jews in order to have unfettered rule over the masses.

But Jews weren't the only scapegoats. Hitler also had grandiose views of the Poles' great power and malevolence. He fantasized that the Poles had killed 17,000 Germans during the Silesian Uprisings (p. 190). He painted the 1928 destruction of Bismarck's statue in the city of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), by Poles, as part of the systematic destruction of German culture (p. 189). In actuality, numerous hallmarks of German culture were spared in Poland, as indeed they are to this very day. And, considering the brutal anti-Polish and anti-Catholic character of Bismarck's policies in Prussian-occupied western Poland (as exemplified by the kulturkampf, one of the first-recorded instances of culture war), it is a wonder that the Poles had waited ten years (after their acquisition of independence) to tear it down!

an important book to read
I recommend that everyone, especially those interested in history and politics, read "Mein Kampf" (1925) and and "Hitler's Second Book" (1928, titled in the US as "Hitler's Secret Book). The reason is very simple, everything he wrote and planned came true. It's powerful stuff and it's something to learn from. History was Hitler's favorite subject and that is clearly on display in "Hitler's Secret Book" in which he discusses the South Tyrol problem. It's an excellent display of his grasp of history and the reality of power politics in the 1920's. It does not matter what you think or feel about the Nazis--read this book, you will learn a lot.

Tedious
Clearly a rough draft done about 1928. Rambling. Tends to put one asleep. Obsessively goes on about the South Tyrol German minority in Italy trying to defuse it as a German domestic political issue. Useful in illuminating geopolitical views and directions regarding France, Italy, Russia and his later to be proven erroneous evaluation of England. Obsessed with a nations daily bread and need for lebensraum, the source of which was to be the East.Must have been a nightmare to have to listen to him.

Very accessible
Having read Hitler's most celebrated tract, "Mein Kampf" twice, I was extremely pleased to discover the lesser known piece by this author (actually written before his association with his latter days adie-de-camp,and brutal editor, Rudolf Hess) and found the style much more contiguous,the structure less choppy and the content wholly logical and reasonable todigest.Truly worth reading in order to better understand the ideology andcharacter (and person) of perhaps the most maligned intellect of modernhistory. ... Read more

Product Description
Siggy Lindo, a young bookkeeper living a rather mundane life, suddenly finds herself possessed by the power of the moon, symptoms that lead her to a psychiatric clinic, where she meets Daniel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Odd, likeable little book
I bought this book in an airport during my jetsetting late girlhood, after having read Radix, Mindarc, and The Last Legends of Earth, Attanasio's cosmic masterpieces that the word epic is too small to describe.So this book was surprising; it's more like a Marion Zimmer Bradley, secretary-wish-fulfillment, Harlequin kind of thing.Normal woman's life transformed, fated love, blah blah.But it contained enough Attanasio tropes to keep me interested: the imperceivable distinction between vision and madness, the erasure of the boundaries between magic and biochemistry; and I'm a chick, I have your regular Prince Charming fantasies, so I liked it okay.

But there was something naggingly odd about the book, so I reread it, and reread it again, and although I couldn't quite believe it, I found that I was reading it as an allegory about feminism and the position of woman in a technologically advanced society.Put very baldly, the crisis of the book concerns a choice which the protaganist must make between a group of characters who can be read to represent irrationality, religion, belief in instinct, and another group representing science and reason.The disasterous choice which she makes is the same choice that popular feminism has made - not the feminism of the academy, but the woman-centered life of regular ladies who get up and go to work everyday.

Now I tend to overanalyze, but what makes me think that Attanasio is indeed playing this kind of game is that the novel makes very explicit the economic subtext of the Harlequin.That is, the entrance of the man into a Harlequin protaganist's life means that she can stop working.The dreary life from which she is liberated is theworld in which she is subordinated to an office routine.The grayness and dreariness of office work - work in general - is here treated as no other genre author except Tanith Lee does.The entrance of mystery and magic is directly linked to the release from the protaganist's job.Tanith Lee is, of course, also playing with the conventions of the Harlequin.

Even if Attanasio didn't mean all this, by trusting the tale I found myself a work by a man that says something profoundly novel about how ordinary women encounter feminism. ... Read more

Product Description
A young woman is jolted out of her mundane existence when, each moonrise, she is transformed by a mystical and erotic awareness. Seeking help for what she believes to be a psychiatric condition, she meets Daniel, "the moon in the man", whose love transforms her. ... Read more

Product Description
Although there is now a large body of research into the nature and treatment of stuttering, little is understood about its underlying mechanisms. As a result until now there has been no comprehensive review of the numerous theories and models that have been proposed to explain stuttering.

Theoretical Issues in Stuttering provides a comprehensive account of the contribution of theory to understanding and managing stuttering. It covers an impressive range of topics including a description of both past and current theories of stuttering, placing each within the relevant historical context. In addition, the authors evaluate the explanatory power of such models and provide a detailed exploration of the implications of these models for the practitioner.

Theoretical Issues in Stuttering aims to fill a gap in the literature on the subject of stuttering theory and to act as an invaluable resource for speech-language pathologists, lecturers and advanced students of speech and language pathology. ... Read more

Product Description
In a future of scientific advancement that has transformed the very fabric of human life, many of the basic notions of what it means to be human are challenged dramatically. As humanity grapples with these new priorities, dangerous new conflicts emerge which threaten extinction of the universe. ... Read more

Product Description
Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more