Some musicians want to challenge an audience, force-feeding fans something that's new, different, and ostensibly "good for" them. Others take the more trad route, serving up the sonic equivalent of comfort food, tunes that lend themselves to almost instant sing-alongs (or at least Bic-flick-alongs). Lenny Kravitz has always unabashedly slotted himself into the latter category, and his righteous channeling of the spirit of '76 (1976, that is) has seldom been more effective than on this outing, which reconciles his strutting rocker side and his sweet soul singer side with panache. Kravitz's crooning has brought him many a chart hit, and this set doesn't skimp on hits-in-the-making -- although even make-out moaners like "A Million Miles Away" and "Believe in Me" are injected with a certain street savvy this time around. He's at his best when leaning into crunchy, riff-laden rockers, like "Dig In" and the Bad Company-meets-Zeppelin lust-fest "If I Could Fall in Love," and when slipping just a touch of bad-boy attitude into the mix, as on the chunky "Bank Robber Man." As is his wont, Kravitz also toys with post-hippie spirituality, but he's a bit less heavy-handed this time, making songs like "God Save Us All"--Which features a smile-inducing vocoder solo straight out of Peter Frampton's book of tricks -- seem less preachy than merely commiserating. While some might be tempted to grab Lenny Kravitz by the feather boa and let him know we've entered a new millennium, there's something reassuring about having a key to the way-back machine at the ready, and Lenny fires up the engine in no time flat.

"Leo Lionni here presents ... [an] imaginary plant kingdom .. Lionni marshals all the facts, all the fabulous lore and scholarship surrounding parallel plants ... And, too, he provides his own elegant, detailed, and scientifically accurate drawings of each nonexistent plant species"--Cover.

"The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah" is a discussion of the meaning of God, the Universe and Man, their essential unity and fundamental attributes as seen through the eyes of Jewish esoteric tradition. The author expounds the Kabbalah's universal teachings which relate all things to their supreme archetypes, the ten "Sefiroth" or principal aspects of God. In addition to the Old Testament and the Talmud, M.Schaya discusses one of the classical sources of Jewish mysticism, the "Zohar" or Book of Splendour. The author promotes the view that to rediscover the deepest meaning of the Old Testament through the interpretations of the Kabbalah, is something that could have a most tonic and enlightening effect on the whole of Christain thought today; these scriptures emphasize a knowledge concerning the triple ordr, Divine, cosmic, and human on which the New Testament itself rests - and is seen to inevitably transform a man's spiritual and moral outlook in a mananer that will affect his whole scale of values and actions.

Leo Steinbergâ€s classic Other Criteria comprises eighteen essays on topics ranging from “Contemporary Art and the Plight of Its Public†and the “flatbed picture plane†to reflections on Picasso, Rauschenberg, Rodin, de Kooning, Pollock, Guston, and Jasper Johns. The latter, which Francine du Plessix Gray called “a tour de force of critical method,†is widely regarded as the most eye-opening analysis of the Johnsâ€s work ever written. This edition includes a new preface and a handful of additional illustrations.“The art book of the year, if not of the decade and possibly of the century. . . .The significance of this volume lies not so much in the quality of its insights—although the quality is very high and the insights are important—as in the richness, precision, and elegance of its style. . . . A meeting with the mind of Leo Steinberg is one of the most enlightening experiences that contemporary criticism affords.†—Alfred Frankenstein, Art News“Not only one of the most lucid and independent minds among art critics, but a profound one.â€â€”Robert Motherwell

With Leo Strauss on Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," eminent Strauss scholar Richard L. Velkley presents Strauss's lectures on Zarathustra with superb annotations that bring context and clarity to the critical role played by Nietzsche in shaping Strauss's thought. In addition to the broad relationship between Nietzsche and political philosophy, Strauss adeptly guides readers through Heidegger's confrontations with Nietzsche, laying out Heidegger's critique of Nietzsche's "will to power" while also showing how Heidegger can be read as a foil for his own reading of Nietzsche. The lectures also shed light on the relationship between Heidegger and Strauss, as both philosophers saw Nietzsche as a central figure for understanding the crisis of philosophy and Western civilization.

Leo Strauss’s Philosophy and Law contains a groundbreaking study of the political philosophy of Maimonides and his Islamic predecessors, and it offers an argument on behalf of that philosophy which is also a profound critique of modern philosophy. Here is an entirely new and complete English translation of Strauss’s work, which takes as its ideal the exacting standards of accuracy that Strauss himself emphasized in his own work. It includes a prefatory essay introducing the argument of each of the four sections of Philosophy and Law.

My Nine Lives is a powerful and stirring memoir of one of the greatest pianists of the postwar era—an inspiring tale of courage, compassion, and triumph over outstanding odds. At the peak of his career, celebrated pianist Leon Fleisher suddenly lost the use of two fingers on his right hand. Miraculously, at the age of sixty-six, he was diagnosed with focal dystonia, and learned to manage it through a combination of physical therapy and experimental Botox injections. In 2003 Fleisher returned to Carnegie Hall to give his first two-handed performance in over three decades and brought down the house. With his coauthor, celebrated music critic Anne Midgette, Fleisher reveals here for the first time the depression that threatened to engulf him as his condition worsened, and the sheer love of music that rescued him from complete self-destruction.

More than a quarter century after Bob Woodward introduced his Scotch-drinking, cigarette-smoking, garage-skulking friend and source in All the President's Men , the public remains enduringly engrossed by the mystery of Deep Throat's identity. Leonard Garment became fascinated himself and began his own search for Deep Throat. This is the story of that hunt and its successful outcome, a hunt conducted in quintessential Washington fashion: at lunches, dinners, and parties, through the examination of secret, classified documents and testimony, and assisted by liberal doses of political gossip and insider tips from Woodward himself.

Queueing Systems Volume 1: Theory Leonard Kleinrock This book presents and develops methods from queueing theory in sufficient depth so that students and professionals may apply these methods to many modern engineering problems, as well as conduct creative research in the field. It provides a long-needed alternative both to highly mathematical texts and to those which are simplistic or limited in approach. Written in mathematical language, it avoids the "theorem-proof" technique: instead, it guides the reader through a step-by-step, intuitively motivated yet precise development leading to a natural discovery of results. Queueing Systems, Volume I covers material ranging from a refresher on transform and probability theory through the treatment of advanced queueing systems. It is divided into four sections: 1) preliminaries; 2) elementary queueing theory; 3) intermediate queueing theory; and 4) advanced material. Important features of Queueing Systems, Volume 1: Theory include- * techniques of duality, collective marks * queueing networks * complete appendix on z-transforms and Laplace transforms * an entire appendix on probability theory, providing the notation and main results needed throughout the text * definition and use of a new and convenient graphical notation for describing the arrival and departure of customers to a queueing system * a Venn diagram classification of many common stochastic processes 1975 (0 471-49110-1) 417 pp. Fundamentals of Queueing Theory Second Edition Donald Gross and Carl M. Harris This graduated, meticulous look at queueing fundamentals developed from the authors' lecture notes presents all aspects of the methodology-including Simple Markovian birth-death queueing models; advanced Markovian models; networks, series, and cyclic queues; models with general arrival or service patterns; bounds, approximations, and numerical techniques; and simulation-in a style suitable to courses of study of widely varying depth and duration. This Second Edition features new expansions and abridgements which enhance pedagogical use: new material on numerical solution techniques for both steady-state and transient solutions; changes in simulation language and new results in statistical analysis; and more. Complete with a solutions manual, here is a comprehensive, rigorous introduction to the basics of the discipline. 1985 (0 471-89067-7) 640 pp.

Unearths one hundred fifty-one movies the author thinks have been unfairly assessed and explains why, in a book for anyone baffled at all the choices when trying to pick a movie to watch.

Book by Leonard Maltin

Dr. Peikoff identifies the cause of Nazism--and the ominous parallels between the intellectual history of Germany and of the United States. He demonstrates that there is a science which has been all but obliterated in the modern world. "Yet this science determines the destiny of nations and the course of history ...," he writes. "It is a science which has to be destroyed, if the catastrophes of our time were to become possible. The science is philosophy."

Is Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality--or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period--and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea. Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish thinkers have debated whether and how Judaism--largely a religion of practice and public adherence to law--can fit into a modern, Protestant conception of religion as an individual and private matter of belief or faith. Batnitzky makes the novel argument that it is this clash between the modern category of religion and Judaism that is responsible for much of the creative tension in modern Jewish thought. Tracing how the idea of Jewish religion has been defended and resisted from the eighteenth century to today, the book discusses many of the major Jewish thinkers of the past three centuries, including Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Theodor Herzl, and Mordecai Kaplan. At the same time, it tells the story of modern orthodoxy, the German-Jewish renaissance, Jewish religion after the Holocaust, the emergence of the Jewish individual, the birth of Jewish nationalism, and Jewish religion in America.

Soul Sisters by Lesley Lokko is a rich, intergenerational tale of love, race, power and secrets which centres on the lifelong friendship between two women: Scottish Jen McFadden and South African-born uKwemisa Mashabane, known to her friends as Kemi. Since childhood, Jen and Kemi have lived like sisters in the McFadden family home in Edinburgh, brought together by a shared family history which stretches back generations. Kemi was educated in Britain alongside Jen and the girls could not be closer; nor could they be more different in the paths they take in life. But the ties that bind them are strong and complicated, and a dark family secret exists in their joint history. Solam Matsunyane is from South Africa's black political elite. Handsome, charismatic, charming, and a successful young banker, he meets both Kemi and Jen on a trip to London and sweeps them off their feet. Partly influenced by her interest in Solam, and partly on a journey of self-discovery, Kemi, now 31, decides to return to the country of her birth for the first time. Jen, seeking an escape from her father's overbearing presence, decides to go with her. In Johannesburg, it becomes clear that Solam is looking for the perfect wife to facilitate his soaring political ambitions. But who will he choose? All the while, the real story behind the two families' connection threatens to reveal itself - with devastating consequences . . .

Hachiko waited at the Shibuya Station for 10 years for his master to return from work, not knowing he'd died of a heart attack. These poems, all written in traditional forms, are told in the voice of Hachiko as an old dog, looking back on his life.

"A novel told in fifty poems, explores the passionate friendship between a woman and a gay man who dies of AIDS. Both deeply personal and undeniably universal, the narrator tells her story with rage, humor, sadness, and most of all, undying love."--Page 4 of cover.

Book by Leslie fiedler

In a rambling series of essays -- partly analytical, partly polemical, and partly autobiographical -- Fiedler takes issue with the elitist and prescriptive tendency among the self-appointed guardians of art, and with the modern split between 'high' and 'low' forms of literature. He argues that traditional approaches to and standards of literature have become obsolete, and a criticism which ignores or condescends to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Gone with the Wind, Roots et alia can have little to say about American culture.

Drag King Dreams is the story of Max Rabinowitz, a butch lesbian bartender at an East Village club where drag kings, dykes dressed as men, perform. A veteran of the women's and gay movement of the past 30 years, Max's mid-life crisis hits in the midst of the post-9/11 world. Max is lonely and uncertain about her future--fearful in fact of America's future with its War on Terror and War in Iraq--with only a core group of friends to turn to for reassurance. Max is shaken from her crisis, however, by the news that her friend Vickie, a transvestite, has been found murdered on her way home late one night. As the community of cross-dressers, drag queens, lesbian and gay men, and "genderqueers" of all kinds stand up together in the face of this tragedy, Max taps into the activist spirit she thought had long disappeared and for the first time in years discovers hope for her future.