Hierarchy Theory; The Challenge of Complex Systems. (International Library of Systems Theory and Philosophy)

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Reviews and describes common invasive plants in Western North America.

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The true story of the first English colony in North America and the mystery of the disappearance of the settlers with only the word "Croatoan" carved in the wood of the palisade.

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A World of Information

Roanoke Colony: America's First Mystery
Tracey Esplin
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 141372485X

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Walter Raleigh had a dream of starting a colony in the New World. With help from the Queen of England and explorers willing to go, Raleigh starts his journey. But founding his colony doesnÂ't prove to be as easy as he first thought. From warfare with local Indians to being stranded on an uninhabited island far across the ocean, Raleigh wonders if he should give up his dream. When Raleigh locates one hundred and seventeen colonists, including women and children, willing to start their homes in an uninhabited land, he feels sure his luck is changing. As he watches the ships sail out of the English harbor, he has faith in their success. So what happened three years later when all one hundred and seventeen colonists show up missing? One must read within the covers of the book to see the true journey of Walter Raleigh and his ill-fated colonists.

Customer Reviews:

A World of Information.......2004-09-19

This book seems to be very accurately written, with a great deal of information about Roanoke. It was neat to read about what actually happened. I like how the author leaves the reader thinking in the end. Great quick read!

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Key Topics in Clinical Research aims to provide a short, clear, highlighted reference to guide trainees and trainers through research and audit projects, from first idea, through to data collection and statistical analysis, to presentation and publication. This book is also designed to assist trainees in preparing for their specialty examinations by providing comprehensive, concise, easily accessible and easily understandable information on all aspects of clinical research and audit. The book also includes information on the Mann-Whitney U test, logic regression, analysis of variance (ANOVA) chi squared, and Fisher's exact test, and provides protocol and guidelines.

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'Liquid Crystallinity in Polymers' focuses on the wealth of scientific ideas and approaches which has accompanied the rapid growth of this field over the past two decades. The author highlights the molecular basis for liquid crystallinity in polymers, including lyotropic, thermotropic, mainchain, sidechain systems and mixtures.
An entire section is devoted to conformational aspects of polymeric mesogens. A section describing current molecular
theories follows. Another section on experimental behavior analyzes the performance of these theories, pointing out areas where further investigation is needed.
A final section deals with elastic and viscous properties, with defects and textures and with rheology of LCP.

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The mystique of biologically inspired (or bioinspired) paradigms is their ability to describe and solve complex relationships from intrinsically very simple initial conditions and with little or no knowledge of the search space. Edited by two prominent, well-respected researchers, the Handbook of Bioinspired Algorithms and Applications reveals the connections between bioinspired techniques and the development of solutions to problems that arise in diverse problem domains. A repository of the theory and fundamentals as well as a manual for practical implementation, this authoritative handbook provides broad coverage in a single source along with numerous references to the available literature for more in-depth information. The book's two sections serve to balance coverage of theory and practical applications. The first section explains the fundamentals of techniques, such as evolutionary algorithms, swarm intelligence, cellular automata, and others. Detailed examples and case studies in the second section illustrate how to apply the theory in actually developing solutions to a particular problem based on a bioinspired technique. Emphasizing the importance of understanding and harnessing the robust capabilities of bioinspired techniques for solving computationally intractable optimizations and decision-making applications, the Handbook of Bioinspired Algorithms and Applications is an absolute must-read for anyone who is serious about advancing the next generation of computing.

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This selection of twenty-one short stories by M.R. James--a first-class writer of supernatural fiction--represents his best work, including "Count Magnus," "The Rose Garden," "The Uncommon Prayer-book," "Rats," "The Malice of Inanimate Objects," and "A Vignette," as well as the title
story.

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Write a Review, and I'll Come to You, My Lad........2007-02-01

O whistle, an' I'll come to you, my lad;
O whistle, an' I'll come to you, my lad;
Tho' father and mither should baith gae mad,
O whistle, an' I'll come to you, my lad.
(Burns.)

Over the last Twenty years I've purchased many books and got rid of many (After reading them then donating them to charity shops),but this is the only one I've repurchased.
I could never get the scenarios and characters out of my head,the way M R James succinctly describes a scene or a, "terrifying agent of supernatural malice" have resided in my head as much as I would have liked them to leave.
If lots of Gore is your thing you may be disappointed by these stories, but for those of us who like a well written story told with panache and subtlety,then these are for us.
~~~~
For several years in the early 70's when the BBC made "A Ghost Story for Christmas" it was always the M R James stories that disturbed me the most. But even though I was disturbed by them I was always too fascinated to switch the TV off,and whilst the BBC interpretations were good they never quite captured the atmosphere of the written page.
Most of the "Heroes"(For want of a better word)of these stories are intellectuals from the dusty halls of some Academy or other,who are afflicted by intellectual pride or the even graver sin (In M R James stories)of curiosity!
My personal favourites are "The Mezzotint",and "Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to you, my Lad".
The endings of a few of these stories are not completely resolved, and it's because of that, they stay in the mind longer.
It has always amused me that some of the most creepy and ungodly stories ever written in the English language were written by this most devout Christian.
For maximum effect to be read late at night, and by candlelight!

Spooky as all get up.......2005-03-03

I bought this book in Paris. It was the cheapest most interesting book in English, so I grabbed it for the flight. It's one of the best book buys I've ever had.
This stuff is genuinely spooky. There are images here
that will stick with you for a long time, and this guy puts in a lot of interesting historical details that make
the stories seem all the more plausible. Can't
recommend this book enough.

Perfect.......2004-11-22

I first read these stories when I was 13, and after 40 years, they still flash into my mind if I have to walk a dark road at night. Where authors like King and Straub (excellent in their own ways in the genre)need to float gruesome stuff our way to be effective, James does it all with mood. Even if ghost stories are not something you like, these are worth reading just to observe his beautiful use of the English language. I recommend this collection highly.

Most but not all of MRJ's supernatural stories.......2003-08-10

If you don't want to pay big bucks for Ash-Tree Press's "A Pleasing Terror" (2001), the complete and heavily annotated supernatural writings of M. R. James (MRJ), then this book might be the next best thing. Cox has collected most of MRJ's stories in this volume and has added a short but decent introduction to this master of the antiquarian ghost story.

The following stories are included in this book:

"Canon Alberic's Scrap-book"--The classical MRJ invocation of a scholar who unwittingly opens the wrong book and pays horribly for his misadventure.

"The Mezzotint"--A collector of topographical pictures purchases a mezzotint with a view of a manor-house from the early part of the eighteenth century. The picture slowly evolves through a story of murder and revenge from beyond the grave.

"Number 13"--A scholar settles into a Danish hotel to research the town's ecclesiastical history and learns more than he ever wanted to know about a bishop who sold his soul to Satan.

"Count Magnus"-- Another story (along with "Number 13") that may have had its origin in MRJ's trips to Scandinavia. Mr. Wraxall, the scholarly hero of this tale dooms himself by reading a forbidden treatise of alchemy and expressing a wish to meet its long-dead (or not so dead) Swedish author.

"'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'"-- A Professor takes a golfing vacation on England's East Coast, and agrees to take a look at the site of an ancient Templars' preceptory for an archeologically-inclined friend of his. He finds a whistle inscribed in medieval Latin.

"The Treasure of Abbot Thomas"-- Mr. Somerton deciphers a text from a medieval Latin history and an inscription in the painted-glass window of a private chapel, then goes on a treasure hunt in Germany.

"A School Story"-- MRJ was a dean at King's College, Cambridge and he supposedly wrote this story to entertain the King's College Choir. In this tale two middle-aged men are reminiscing about ghosts at boys' schools, and one relates a story of a schoolboy's revenge on a murderous master.

"The Rose Garden"-- Features one of MRJ's less sympathetic female characters. The overbearing Mrs. Anstruther gets her supernatural comeuppance when she insists upon the removal of an old oak post in the rose garden.

"The Tractate Middoth"-- The young Mr. Garrett is asked to find a copy of the "Tractate Middoth" in a "certain famous library" and stumbles upon a cobwebby mystery. Find yourself a quiet, unpopulated corner in the stacks of an old library and see if you can read this story without looking behind you.

"Casting the Runes"-- One of MRJ's most collected stories along with "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." This is a tale of a man who unwittingly angers a sorcerer, who is assumed by some Monty scholars to be based on the self-styled 'Great Beast,' occultist Aleister Crowley.

"The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral"-- The Venerable John Benwell Haynes succeeds to his new ecclesiastical position upon the mysterious demise of Archdeacon Pulteney in 1810, but does not find much enjoyment in his new job. In fact, the archdeacon's stall with its carvings of a cat, the King of Hell, and Death becomes a particularly haunting spot for the new prelate.

"Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance"-- Once installed as the new master of his deceased uncle's estate, Mr. Humphreys discovers the plan to an overgrown maze on his property. He decides to investigate the old landscaping feature after stumbling across a set of stone blocks that were once part of the maze. He reconstructs the inscription on them to read: "Penetrans Ad Interior Mortis."

"The Diary of Mr Poynter"--A book collector finds a sample of fabric in an old diary and decides to have it reproduced as curtains for his bedroom.

"An Episode of Cathedral History"--Mr. Lake is deputed to examine the archives of the Cathedral of Southminster, and is curious to see what the ancient building looks like at night. He hears the tale of a rather plain altar-tomb and what transpired when a Victorian Dean attempted to move it.

"The Uncommon Prayer-book"-- Mr. Davidson strikes up a conversation with an old gentleman on a train and is invited to view a disused Chapel. MRJ engulfs his reader in quaint British dialects in this story of a prayer book that would not stay shut.

"A Neighbour's Landmark"-- A gentleman spends a wet August afternoon in his host's library and discovers an old pamphlet with two lines from a country song, "That which walks in Betton Wood/ Knows why it walks or why it cries." When the weather clears, he explores the part of his friend's property that used to be called 'Betton Wood.'

"A Warning to the Curious"--A young man discovers the hiding place of an ancient crown of East Anglia and is haunted by his finding. As in many of MRJ's stories, curiosity is severely punished.

"Rats"--This story almost ruined quaint English inns for me. It has nothing to do with rats and you will wish that it had.

"The Experiment"-- First published in "The Morning Post" in 1931 and uncollected in MRJ's lifetime. A horrid little tale of murder and buried treasure.

"The Malice of Inanimate Objects"--Morbidly humorous story that starts out with the retelling of a fairy tale and ends in death.

"A Vignette"-- This might be a childhood recollection rather than a work of fiction. It has no plot and the setting very much resembles the rectory at Livermere Park where MRJ grew up.

Chilling Tales for a Winter's Night.......2002-01-08

As a fan of Victorian gothic fiction, this anthology delivers all that it promises. M.R. James is the king of creating a world of unexplainable situations. However, his endings leave the reader with many questions. Thus, when the reader puts the book down, she is left with the pleasant, tingling feeling of fear. If you like understatement and are a Radcliffe or Monk Lewis fan, then give M.R. James a chance.

Casting the Runes: And Other Ghost Stories (Oxford World's Classics)

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Great stories---bargain basement , shoddy Edition. AVOID
One of the great voices in horror
An inexplicably dreadful edition
find it
Some of the Greatest Ghost Stories of M.R. James

Casting the Runes: And Other Ghost Stories (Oxford World's Classics)
M. R. James , and Michael Chabon
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories (Oxford World's Classics)

ASIN: 0195151178

Book Description

When we think of ghost stories, we tend to think of cub scouts cringing by a fire, s'mores at the ready, as some aging camp counselor tries to scare them witless with yet another tale from the crypt. But as Michael Chabon's marvelous introduction reminds us, the ghost story was once integral to the genre of the short story. Indeed, as he points out, it can be argued that the ghost story was the genre. Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw"--most of the early short story writers wrote ghost stories as a matter of course. And the best writer of ghost stories, the acknowledged master, was M.R. James. In Casting the Runes, we have twenty-one tales that, in Chabon's words, "venture to the limits of the human capacity for terror and revulsion...armed only with an umbrella and a very dry wit." The stories here represent the best of James's work. They are set in the leisurely, late-Victorian, middle-class world of country houses, seaside inns, out-of-the-way railway stations, and cathedral closes, where gentlemen of independent means and antiquarian tastes suddenly find themselves confronted by terrifying agents of supernatural malice. But what these tales are really about, writes Chabon, "is ultimately the breathtaking fragility of life, of 'reality,' of all the structures that we have erected to defend ourselves from our constant nagging suspicion that underlying everything is chaos, brutal and unreasoning." The tales in Casting the Runes are both chilling fun and, as Chabon concludes, "unmistakably works of art." Anyone who loves short fiction or who enjoys a good scare will find these stories an irresistible delight.

Customer Reviews:

Great stories---bargain basement , shoddy Edition. AVOID.......2003-07-31

Oxford University Press has committed an outrage---a violation!---and the publishers should be ashamed of themselves. Montague Rhodes James (1865-1936) is, for me, the Grand Master of the Terrifying Tale, and for those not acquainted with his works---well, I envy you the chilling delight of meeting up with James's menacing, atmospheric prose for the first time. Read the tales and relish their keen sense of terror, which belies the avuncular, scholarly style and antiquarian sensibilities in which James was so well-versed.

That said, it's a shame that so many readers will encounter James for the first time in Oxford's new collection of "Casting the Runes & Other Ghost Stories", which is the cheesiest, shoddiest edition of James's work I have ever encountered. In light of James's dark brilliance, this slipshod edition is the equivalent of serving Kristal Champagne in a plastic coke bottle, or offering Sevruga caviar from a tuna can.

I was initially excited at getting all of my favorite Jamesian tales of terror bound up in a new hardback volume from OUP. Imagine my intial shock when the tiny tome arrived---and I do mean TINY. Check out those book dimensions carefully, folks: this edition is a teensy vanity hardback about the size of the little abridged poetry volumes booksellers stock during the holidays for stocking stuffers, usually kept at the cash register.

Think about that for a second. Think about getting twenty-three James tales, 293 pages in total, into a teeny-tiny little book. Think of just how miniscule the print on those stories would have to be, or how absent the book would have to be of anything resembling normal margins.

Well, think about it, and then think hard before wasting your money on this edition, because this is pretty much M.R. James for Lilliputians. I have 20/20 vision and I need a magnifying glass to read the type comfortably. Oh, and remember all the scholarly annotations supplied by James scholar Michael Cox in the previous edition? As one reviewer noted, the asterisks are still there, but the annotations have been gutted.

Even better, apparently to save on paper and space the Oxford editors, in their infinite wisdom, cut out the James essay "Stories I Have Tried to Write" that appeared in the previous edition. Mind you, this is an essay that has graced *every* edition of "Casting the Runes" since the first publishing run, and they just---cut it out.

Oh, it gets better. In place of the erudite Cox, we now have Michael Chabon's witless introduction, in which Chabon appears eager to show how many literary works he is familiar with, but proves unable to get the name of James's protagonist in "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, Lad" right. Given that Chabon professes in the first sentence of his review that "Oh Whistle" is one of the finest short stories ever written, one would think M. Chabon would realize the name of the story's hero is Parkins, not Parke.

This edition is so shabby, cheap, and shoddy as to make even the most fervent bibliophile yearn for a good book-burning. James deserves better, and I hope his ghost haunts Oxford University Press.

One of the great voices in horror.......2003-03-28

First, about M.R. James:

He is excellent! He is one of the best, most underappreciated voices in horror. Lovecraft admired him. His stories, though old, are quite scary. Also, they are very well written. As Chabon points out in his intro, Poe and Lovecraft weren't the best literary stylists. Most people cite "Oh, Whistle..." as James's best story, but I think I'll vote for "Count Magnus." Certainly all of them are good. More than that, they are REQUIRED reading for anyone who wants to have a basic understanding of horror literature. It is also a hell of a good read.

Second, this edition:

I was greatful to a previous reviewer for explaining the asterisks. There are asterisks without footnotes all over this book, as well as other Oxford University Press books (The Monk). Now we know that these are residue from a previous edition that HAD footnotes. Perhaps you might want to get that version.

However, I take great issue with the disparaging of Michael Chabon's essay on M.R. James. If you don't get the edition with his introduction, I recommend going to the bookstore and reading through it anyway. His comments are very illuminating on James and ghost stories in general.

An inexplicably dreadful edition.......2003-03-20

Beware! If you love James or desire to discover him, this new edition of OUP's anthology is not the way to go. A previous and superb OUP edition was edited and annotated by Michael Cox. His fascinating comments are cued by asterisks that are liberally sprinkled throughout the text. In the current version, all the annotations are gone--but the asterisks remain! One can imagine how many readers must be scratching their heads over them. In place of Cox's excellent work, there is an innane introduction by the fashionable novelist Michael Chabon, who tells nothing of James's publications and incredibly little of his life (not even his dates), and explores only one of the stories, persistently misidentifying the protagonist, Parkins, as Parkes. You can't make this stuff up. What was OUP thinking? Why fix something that not only wasn't broken, but was something to be admired? I bought this volume as a gift--it's a handsome hardback--but plan on asking for a refund.

find it.......2002-01-05

The art of Dr. James is by no means haphazard, and in the preface to one of his collections he has formulated three very sound rules for
macabre composition. A ghost story, he believes, should have a familiar setting in the modern period, in order to approach closely the
reader's sphere of experience. Its spectral phenomena, moreover, should be malevolent rather than beneficent; since fear is the emotion
primarily to be excited. And finally, the technical patois of 'occultism' or pseudo-science ought carefully to be avoided; lest the charm of
casual verisimilitude be smothered in unconvincing pedantry.
-H.P. Lovecraft

Though less well remembered today than some other authors of Gothic ghost stories--like J. S. [John Sheridan] LeFanu, whose work he
edited, Bram Stoker, and Henry James (no relation), or their successors H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, and the like--M. R. James is
one of the great early horror writers. This story, which concerns a mysterious and unpleasant Mr. Karswell, who takes creepy exception to a
negative review of his book, The Truth of Alchemy, shows off James's talents to good effect, combining genuine scares with a droll wit.
But what makes this edition particularly appealing are the 12 splendid black-and-white drawings by Jeff White--an artist with whom I am not
familiar and about whom I could find nearly nothing on the Web--that accompany the text. This slender volume seems certain to get any
reader looking for more stories by Mr. James and more books illustrated by the estimable Mr. White

GRADE : A

Some of the Greatest Ghost Stories of M.R. James.......2000-02-11

This is a great collection of the short horror stories of M.R. James, the best of the early 20th century horror writers (arguably, the best of the entire century!)

James was a professor and antiquarian who sets most of his stories in the contemporary (early 1900's) ruins of England's medieval past. The title story is a marvelous tale of a vicious crank whose occult revenge is turned against him. Other stories included are:

Canon Alberic's scrap-book.

Number 13

Count Magnus

'Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.'

The treasure of Abbot Thomas.

Many more! Highly recommended.

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Casting The Runes and Other Ghost Stories
M.R. James
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0965498220

Product Description

A spectacular collection of ghost stories by one of the masters of the genre, introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon. "The central story of M.R. James, reiterated with inexhaustible inventiveness, is ultimately the breathtaking fragility of life, of "reality", of all the structures that we have erected to defend ourselves from our constant nagging suspicion that underlying everything is chaos, brutal and unreasoning. It is hard to conceive of a more serious theme, or a more contemporary plot, than this.... The stories are, unmistakably, works of art." - Michael Chabon, from the Introduction

Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories

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Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories
M. R. James
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OP9FC0

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Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories
M. R.; edited by Michael Cox James
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OK6AVO

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