Letters that appear in this volume cover only the last two decades of Spinoza’s life and represent a mere fraction of the immense correspondence he carried on during his lifetime.

In the mid-1930s, high-schooler Joe Sullivan, slightly crippled by a childhood accident and therefore ineligible for enlistment in the US Armed forces feels his future is very dim. Befriended by a Japanese maritime radio officer, Takeo Okada, Joe decides to become a ships radioman. After obtaining an amateur radio operators license and a commercial ops certificate, Joe maintains radio contact with his Japanese benefactor until he hears from another Japanese amateur that Takeo was lost in a ship wreck. Applying for a shipboard radio job just before his 18th birthday, Joe meets and is seduced by Kate Nelson, the company presidents secretary. He becomes involved in a continuing feud with Bull Taylor, the ships first mate. He learns that both his parents are killed in an auto accident. Joe, despondent over the loss of Takeo and his parents turns too whiskey and women. In a stop-over in Hawaii he meets and falls in love with a nisei, Myoshi. After a short-lived affair, Joe departs Hawaii. When his ship strikes a Japanese mine near Makin Island, Joe is the sole survivor. Rescued by native fishermen he is taken to a hospital on a French controlled island. Regaining his health, he is taken to Australia where he is induced by the officer in charge of coast watchers to serve a half-year stint on an isolated island. After reporting enemy ship movement during the Battle of the Coral Sea, Joe is unnerved when he sees a one- armed man put ashore on the opposite end of the island by Japanese navy men. He later discovers that the one armed man is his old friend. Takeo had lost an arm when attacked by sharks, and was no longer an asset to the IJN as a fighting man. The two renew their old friendship even though their countries are at war friend and foe. They enjoy their island life even though alarmed by several incidents that threatened discovery. When the time comes for Joe to be relieved of his duty, he sadly leaves his friend alone on the island.

"A lonely mouse lived in a small house beside a great palace. In the great palace lived a cat." Each night the mouse gazes up at the cat in the palace tower. Is the cat my friend? he wonders. Determined to find out, he bravely makes his way into the palace through a tiny hole and climbs all the way up to the tower, where the cat sits on the windowsill. "Hello, are you friend or foe?" he squeaks. This simple story by John Sobol has a surprising outcome, giving young readers a chance to draw their own conclusions. It is perfectly complemented by Dasha Tolstikova's subtle yet striking illustrations.

Written by a celebrated Islamic scholar to his students in Turkey after his political exile in 1925, these letters follow the long-established traditions of correspondence between spiritual masters and their students in remote lands. Both expressions of friendship and long-distance tutorials on points of scholarly debate, most of the letters are answers to questions about theology and hold forth on such matters as the nature of hell, the suffering of innocents, the miracles of Prophet Muhammad, and the divine purpose of the universe.