Customer Reviews (5)

Awesome book!
After seeing Dr. Benjamin perform in Las Vegas at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference in 2002, I bought this book and also his Mathemagics course.My middle school students love it!Many of them prefer to do mental calculations when possible and they love when I do mathematic magic tricks on them.Better, they love the algebraic explanations and can't wait to use the tricks on their friends and family, knowing that they can explain the trick as well.
My college students are amazed when I can square a 2-digit number quicker than they can punch it in on a calculator.(I'm not too fast at the 3 digit numbers; it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks!)
I highly recommend this book for math teachers, school libraries, students, or anyone at all!

One path to learning mathematics
Ambivalence surrounds me when I attempt to review this book. As someone who learned arithmetic in the pre-calculator days, many of the ideas in this book bring back deep memories. One of my favorite things to do when in my teen years and later was to keep track of the items in the grocery cart and estimate the total cost. It was considered a failure when the guess and true total differed by more than $0.25. While this skill did succeed in amazing people, I cannot recall a single instance where it actually was financially beneficial. And eventually I gave it up, going on to mathematics and computers.
But those days are gone, and calculators (computers) do free the mind for other things. So the question becomes, is it beneficial to read books of this type and learn the "lost" art of estimation? The history of mathematics informs us that early mental manipulation of numbers is a strong indicator of the future development of mathematical ability. Gauss and Hardy are two excellent examples of this. However, in later years Hardy in particular looked down on those who were mere number crunchers.
Which leads to the clearest use for the techniques demonstrated in this book, namely to instruct children in the mental manipulation of symbols. By having young minds compete against a calculator, mental techniques are developed that most likely cannot be created any other way. And those methods are excellent training for future careers in the quantitative sciences. And this book does an excellent job in introducing these "tricks." All are clearly explained and detailed solutions to the problems are in the back of the book. Anyone wishing to learn how to perform efficient mental computations will find what they are looking for.
If your goal is to teach or learn how to perform calculations in your head, then this book is for you. However, one should make an effort to keep everything in perspective. The ability to perform mental arithmetic should be considered as a step toward mathematical ability and not a stand-alone indicator of such skill.

(Published in "Journal of Recreational Mathematics" - reprinted with permission.)

Una pequeña joya
He encontrado el libro muy útil , entretenido , y facil de leer.
Muy recomendable para iniciarse en el cálculo mental.

Una pequeña joya
He encontrado el libro muy útil , entretenido , y facil de leer.
Muy recomendable para iniciarse en el cálculo mental.

Truly amazing
A truly amazing insight into various ways to mystify others with seemingly impossible mathematical challenges. Learn how to determine the day someone was born on, or guess the missing number in the answer to a multiplication problem. This book provides you with insight to the fun (yes... fun) side of math. You will be greatly impressed by the tricks to amaze your friends and make math interesting ... Read more

Book Description
These simple math secrets and tricks will forever change how you look at the world of numbers.

Secrets of Mental Math will have you thinking like a math genius in no time. Get ready to amaze your friends—and yourself—with incredible calculations you never thought you could master, as renowned “mathemagician” Arthur Benjamin shares his techniques for lightning-quick calculations and amazing number tricks. This book will teach you to do math in your head faster than you ever thought possible, dramatically improve your memory for numbers, and—maybe for the first time—make mathematics fun.

Yes, even you can learn to do seemingly complex equations in your head; all you need to learn are a few tricks. You’ll be able to quickly multiply and divide triple digits, compute with fractions, and determine squares, cubes, and roots without blinking an eye. No matter what your age or current math ability, Secrets of Mental Math will allow you to perform fantastic feats of the mind effortlessly. This is the math they never taught you in school.



Also available as an eBook ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Does what it says it will
I have always been good at math, but I still found a lot of the tricks in this book new and handy. Most of these tricks don't require that you are good at math - my husband was even able to do them!

Secrets of Mental Math
I am an elementary school teacher and I highly recommend this book for anyone who has learned their basic math concepts.It is fantastic!The authors provide new insights into the mathmatical world by making the reader feel and become mathamagicians.It uncovers a world of fun within our world of numbers.It is for young and old alike.No one is too set in their ways to find the magic within its pages:)

This book delivers as promised!
If you have a chance to see Art Benjamin in action, DO IT!!!He is very entertaining, great with the audience, and quite a showman!On top of that, his facility with numbers is awesome!This book details his "secrets"!!!
(Although he does not divulge how he does the invisible card trick!!!) ;->

Great Book
Great, concise, and helpful book.Plenty of examples, clear cut explanations, and fun exercises made reading this book a worthwhile endeavor.I recommend it to anyone to help brush up math skills and learn newer and better ways of solving math problems.

Great for SAT/GRE study!
I am a professional SAT/GRE teacher and tutor, achieving an 800 in the GRE math section. After telling many students that the secret to the math section is mental math and approximation, I decided to see what books were available. I saw that this one had good reviews and ever since then I have been bringing the book to all my classes and tutoring sessions. I recommend this book for those who never felt they got the hang of math as well as people who love it like I do. It is clearly written, very encouraging and has lots of drills.
I love this book and I think that it really will help people feel more confident when they take a test or just are trying to figure the tip. ... Read more

Book Description
Politics was in Benjamin Harrison's blood. His great-grandfather signed the Declaration and his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, was the ninth president of the United States. Harrison, a leading Indiana lawyer, became a Republican Party champion, even taking a leave from the Civil War to campaign for Lincoln. After a scandal-free term in the Senate-no small feat in the Gilded Age-the Republicans chose Harrison as their presidential candidate in 1888. Despite losing the popular vote, he trounced the incumbent, Grover Cleveland, in the electoral college. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

ANOTHER 19TH CENTURY PRESIDENT WHO'S BARELY REMEMBERED TODAY!
A new biography on Benjamin Harrison, our 23rd president, has been written by Charles Calhoun who is a professor of history at East Carolina University.Harrison is solely remembered now for being the one-term president who served between rival Grover Cleveland's two non-consecutive stints in office.

Harrison was elected for one term in 1888 by defeating incumbent Grover Cleveland.He then lost to Cleveland four years later in a re-match over pretty much the same issues once the president's popularity dropped when the nation's economy tanked in a recession so he was shown the White House door by the voters.

Harrison's time in the White House more resembles the tenure of George Herbert Walker Bush, our current incumbent's father, who was also a somewhat popular president yet got tossed out after one term when it appeared he was out of touch with the public.The younger Bush seemed to have learned the lessons from the defeat of Harrison, his father and other one-term presidents who lost their second term chances by making sure he attacked first on the issues in his re-election contest instead of being put on the defensive to criticism of his administration by Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 election.

Harrison grew up with privilege, just like the current officeholder, being the grandson of a chief executive and a descendant to one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.He ably served in the Civil War, then entered politics against the advice of his father to rise through the ranks of political positions until he was the Republican Party presidential nominee of 1888.

That contest was a close race and Harrison won the electoral count for the win even though Cleveland actually got more votes from the public in the same manner the younger Bush did in his 2000 election triumph over Al Gore.And he took office with his party controlling both houses of Congress just like our current leader.

But the Republicans of the late 1880's were complete opposites to the GOP politicians of today.Then, they were in favor of tariffs on imported goods from other countries to pay for government services.Today, they encourage open borders and the constant arrival of foreign-made products to power the economy and the elimination of all government interference in global commerce to the detriment of American manufacturers who must now compete with cheap labor outside our country and are forced to keep wages as low as possible to the American worker in order to stay in business.

Most of the money coming into the U.S. Treasury in those years was through the fees raised by tariffs on those imports. Harrison campaigned in the 1888 election against Cleveland to keep those protective tariffs in place since there was no federal income tax on citizens to raise government revenues at that time.His strategy was successful and he defeated the first Democrat to be elected to the presidency since 1856.But things began to immediately go wrong for the Indiana politician upon arriving in Washington and taking the oath of office.

Calhoun makes the argument that Harrison's presidency soured when he tried to please too many special interest groups of his own party as the nation had its first billion dollar peacetime budget and Harrison's Republican Party subsequently lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1890 mid-term contest as a result of voter dissatisfaction.An ill-advised attempt to annex Hawaii as part of the growing nation and the constant fighting between his administration and both parties in Congress led to his sliding popularity as his upcoming re-election approached.

His opponent in the 1892 contest would be former President Grover Cleveland who was trying to win his job back.A lackluster campaign on Harrison's part plus the death of his wife two weeks before Election Day took away all of his interest in keeping the presidency so only got 43 percent of the vote and left office a dispirited man.

Harrison paid the price from a scorned populace by trying to please too many special business interests when the country was becoming less agrarian and relying more on manufacturing to spur economic growth in order to compete with the other nations of the world.

"Little Ben" was bigger than we thought
Benjamin Harrison lived most of his adult life in Indianapolis, and his handsome brick Victorian home on Delaware Street has long been a memorial open to the public.Yet even the citizens of his hometown are vague on who he really was.Many confuse him with his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, "Old Tippecanoe" as he was called, who also served in the White House, albeit for only thirty days. Some see the signature of "Benj Harrison" on the Declaration of Independence and assume that the Indianapolis resident was in Philadelphia in 1776.If they only stopped to think, they would realize that the city of Indianapolis was not founded until 1821 and that their Benj Harrison was not born until 1833.The signer was the great-grandfather of the 23rd President.Charles Calhoun has done a scholarly job of helping stamp out the ignorance and confusion surrounding Benjamin Harrison, the last President to sport a beard and the first to decorate a Christmas tree in the White House.He and his wife Caroline were occupants of the Executive Mansion when electricity was first installed, replacing the gaslight fixtures.The old story goes that they were both afraid of the strange new utility and refused to touch the light switches.Harrison was the second shortest of our Presidents, coming in at 5' 6" and was affectionately referred to as "Little Ben" by the 1000 soldiers of the 70th Indiana Regiment who followed him into the Civil War.His bravery in battle was recognized by General Joseph Hooker ("Fighting Joe") who awarded Harrison a battlefield promotion to Brigadier General.Calhoun makes a good case that Harrison could be considered one of the earliest "activist" Presidents, long before Theodore Roosevelt became the poster boy for the position.He makes the point that Harrison's term helped to restore the power of the Presidency that had been nearly destroyed by the impeachment attempt on Andrew Johnson.Harrison surprised and irritated his own party when he bucked their directives and insisted that party hacks would not automatically get patronage.He wanted to make sure his appointees were qualified for their jobs.It sounds like a "no-brainer" today, but it was liberal thinking in those days.Six states came into the Union under Harrison, more than any other Presidential term.Oklahoma was opened for settlement, 13 million acres of land were put into reserve for national forests, the size of the Navy was greatly increased, and Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the McKinley Tariff.So it's not like nothing happened under Benjamin Harrison.Calhoun points out that Harrison often had to serve as his own Secretary of State as a result of frequent "illness" on the part of James G. Blaine, whose relationship with Harrison can only be described as "chilly."Toward the end of his term, in the midst of a re-election campaign, Harrison's beloved wife Caroline was dying of tuberculosis.He stayed at her bedside."I was so removed from the campaign that I can scarcely realize that I was a candidate," Harrison wrote to one supporter.Two weeks after Caroline died in the White House, Grover Cleveland won another term.But it was just as well to Harrison.He wrote, "It does not seem to me that I could have had the physical strength to go through what would have been before me if I had been re-elected, with the added burden of a great personal grief."He returned to his beloved home on Delaware Street and resumed the job he really liked from the beginning - attorney at law.Charles Calhoun, a scholar of the "Gilded Age," provides a very readable account of a President who helped lay the foundation for the 20th century.

Nice presentation of a lesser-known president
If you ask most people what they know about Benjamin Harrison they might tell you two things they remember from history class...that he was the grandson of a president (William Henry Harrison) and that his term was sandwiched in between the two non-consecutive terms of Grover Cleveland. Beyond that, Benjamin Harrison remains a mystery to most, but author Charles Calhoun has done a crisp and clear job of relating Harrison's life and term in office.

This is the third of the American Presidents series I have read and I think that these books serve better in telling the stories of the more obscure presidents. The brief length of the Harrison book (as well as the ones I've read about Arthur and Harding) give just enough overview regarding these men. They are nice "starter" books, which might, one would hope, prompt the reader to seek out deeper accounts of the lives of these presidents. That said, Calhoun's book offers a good flow of information. Harrison is usually rated in the middle of the presidential mix, and Calhoun creates no impression that Harrison should be moved up or down. He was a solid, if stoic president with some notable legislative accomplishments. While never rising to the stature that a more forceful president might have, Harrison nonetheless fought for rights of blacks to vote and was keen on providing a pension for Union veterans of the Civil War. It was fascinating to read that Frederick Douglass said of Harrison, "to my mind, we never had a greater president". That's certainly high praise coming from one of the leading abolitionists of the nineteenth century and a man who knew Abraham Lincoln personally. Harrison had a few challenges abroad, but his four years were generally quiet as the country saw the passage of such landmark legislation as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Harrison's political problems as president seemed to stem as much from members of his own Republican party, especially his wily Secretary of State, James G. Blaine. Through a combination of forces against him, Harrison lost badly to Grover Cleveland in 1892.

Calhoun tells of the president's dalliance with and subsequent marriage to his wife's niece, Mary (Mame) Dimmick...it's a colorful addition to the life of a pious president. The rift that this marriage caused seems never to have healed with his two adult children as Harrison died just five years after his second wedding.

Benjamin Harrison may have been a footnote in history but Charles Calhoun has rightly written about him. After all, there have been only forty-two different occupants of the presidential chair...and Harrison was one of them. I recommend this book for its insight and easy narrative style.

A fine work on a little-known president
Unlike some of the authors in the AP series, Charles Calhoun is a professional historian who has written previously about his subject's era. He clearly has the depth of knowledge to analyze Harrison and place him properly in the context of his time.
While Benjamin Harrison had a successful career prior to his election as President, he really was no more distinguished than any number of 1880s politicos. A respected Civil War officer and successful lawyer, he was a candidate because of his famous name and his popularity in the swing-state of Indiana. After his election however, Harrison was not able to hold his party together. He could not subdue or satisfy his party rival J. G. Blaine, or enact all of the desired Republican legislation. His presidency was crippled by losses in 1890 congressional elections and dissatisfaction among western Republicans. The death of wife Caroline Harrison in 1892 sapped Ben's desire to wage a strong second campaign.
I was surprised to learn that Harrison was a strong advocate of black civil rights. However, he was not very successful in stepping up federal protection for blacks in the South. Calhoun also covers Harrison's somewhat creepy relationship with his wife's niece, whom he would marry after he left the White House.
If you are not up to reading the three-volume biography of Harrison, this a good place to turn. Recommended for anyone interested in the Gilded Age.

big government men
Imagine a Republican who believes in a big government? This wonderful biography of Benjamin Harrison is useful for us today to sort out a different era. While this is short, it certainly covers an era in which few of us are very familiar. However, the era is the foundation of today, and this book opens a window for us. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Benjamin (Arthur) Quarles, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1378 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Arthur Benjamin Reeve, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1432 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Arthur Benjamin Mitzman, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 850 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Customer Reviews (5)

excellent short introduction with perceptive original insights
I was very pleased to find in this book not just a reliable short introduction to Rimbaud's life and work but also some unknown (to me) details about the lives and works of Rimbaud's circle, as well as the writer's effect on later generations -- for a short, inexpensive book on the subject this is peerless.

Flawed summary of the life of a revolutionary poet
I wanted to like this book, dealing as it does with a poet who more than anyone else discovered the boundaries of language, and then redefined it in a way which has since been much imitated, but never equaled. This book is beautifully produced and written in a chatty and engaging, if a little defensive, style - Benjamin Ivry does seem too intent at times at forcing Rimbaud into the role of militant gay icon when this was only one aspect of his life - and the photos and bibliography are excellent.

However, there are several unforgivable errors, ranging from the glaring (Rimbaud had his right leg amputated, not the left) to the merely annoying (quotes from a couple of poems are misattributed). Also, Ivry seems at times so carried away with his subject that he relies too much on supposition to prove a point: for example, there is absolutely no evidence that Verlaine commissioned Rosman's famous painting of a bed-ridden, gunshot-wounded Rimbaud.

What I did like about this book was the final chapter, a fascinating collection of quotes from gay artists, poets, writers and film-makers through the years, proving that, as Eugene Borza once said about Alexander the Great, there are as many Rimbauds as there are those who profess a serious interest in him.

Flawed summary of the life of a revolutionary poet
I wanted to like this book, dealing as it does with a poet who more than anyone else discovered the boundaries of language, and then redefined it in a way which has since been much imitated, but never equaled. This book is beautifully produced and written in a chatty and engaging, if a little defensive, style - Benjamin Ivry does seem too intent at times at forcing Rimbaud into the role of militant gay icon when this was only one aspect of his life - and the photos and bibliography are excellent.

However, there are several unforgivable errors, ranging from the glaring (Rimbaud had his right leg amputated, not the left) to the merely annoying (quotes from a couple of poems are misattributed). Also, Ivry seems at times so carried away with his subject that he relies too much on supposition to prove a point: for example, there is absolutely no evidence that Verlaine commissioned Rosman's famous painting of a bed-ridden, gunshot-wounded Rimbaud.

What I did like about this book was the final chapter, a fascinating collection of quotes from gay artists, poets, writers and film-makers through the years, proving that, as Eugene Borza once said about Alexander the Great, there are as many Rimbauds as there are those who profess a serious interest in him.

Rimbaud as a Saint of Gay Culture
In the early 1950s, Rene Etiemble published a doctoral dissertation of monumental proportions, "Le Mythe de Rimbaud", which enumeratedthe numerous, variegated and, ultimately, misleading and false mythologieswhich had been propogated about Rimbaud in the decades following his deathin 1891.Etiemble devoted more than twenty years to researching andrefuting these myths, including the myths of Rimbaud the seer, theCatholic, the Communard, the homosexual, the scoundrel, and the martyr.AsEnid Starkie suggested in her definitive biography, Etiemble's work had asalutary effect on modern approaches to Rimbaud by showing that "nosingle one of these descriptions accurately fits him."The result,among other things, was to shift the focus of Rimbaud studies fromhagiography, on the one hand, and demonization, on the other, to anexploration of Rimbaud's revolutionary poetic language andexpression.

More than fifty years after Etiemble's watersheddissertation, Benjamin Ivry has written "Arthur Rimbaud", abrief, fascinating, but ultimately somewhat disingenuous biographical glosson Rimbaud's life.Ivry's book is the first in a series of books to bepublished by Absolute Press, books intended "to explore and portraythe various and often unexpected ways in which homosexuality has informedthe life and creative work of the influential gay and lesbian artists,writers, singers, dancers, composers, and actors of our time."It is,in other words, a book which has an agenda--an agenda which once againseeks to fit the enigmatic nature of Rimbaud's biography into a mythology,this time a mythology of Rimbaud as a founding saint of modern gay culture. Thus, Rimbaud's brilliant, complex and poetically difficult masterpieces,"Une Saison en Enfer" and "Illuminations", works whichare laden with symbol and mystery, with a radically innovative poeticvitality, are reduced by Ivry to the product of Rimbaud's erstwhilehomoerotic relationship with Paul Verlaine.Every aspect of Rimbaud'sbrief life as a poet, in Ivry's depiction, is driven by Rimbaud's"gayness", by his love for Verlaine, by his presumed disinterestin women.Never mind other aspects of Rimbaud's biography--his severemother, his absent father, his religious upbringing, his revolutionarypoetic work itself!Moreover, while the book contains a usefulbibliography, it is devoid of footnotes, so it is impossible to ascertainthe veracity of the speculations which permeate Ivry's text.

Havingsaid all of this, I also must say that Ivry is an outstanding writer--hisprose sparkles--and this little book is definitely worth reading if youhave an interest in Rimbaud because it provides fascinating details onRimbaud's relationship with Verlaine and others.In particular, the bookextensively discusses the gay aspects of Rimbaud's life and poetry andRimbaud's influence on subsequent writers from Cocteau to Kerouac to JimMorrison.These are aspects of Rimbaud's life which are not explored veryclosely by Starkie's definitive biography and, if you read Ivry's book withsome degree of skepticism, it provides a fascinating and provocativecomplement to the standard treatment of Rimbaud's life

PERSEPTIVE INFO-CRAMMED BIOGRAPHY OF CONTROVERSIAL RIMBAUD
Benjamin Ivry's short, but informative tome is a refreshing outline on one of France's most controversial poets. Rimbaud(1854-1891) was a L'enfant terrible, writing all his major works before the age of 20! In Ivry's illuminating biography, the reader gets to understand the motivatingfactors behind his wrenching verse. Unlike manyRimbaud books, Ivry's bookdelves into the torrid, temultuous affair the young poet had with the olderpoet, Paul Verlaine. Their stormy affair is one of the most renowned in gayliterary history. Ivry pulls no punches in his description of their nearfatal relationship and through this understanding, we see where the painand the power of his verse emanated from. He offers a fount of informationon this rarely understood young artist and the demimonde of French literarysociety at the turn of the century. He also deconstructs many of Rimbaud'smost infamous poems, so that even the novice can understand the power ofhis words. Stocked with rare photos and art, this wonderful little bookalso has an extensive bibliography! ... Read more