It's been months since I've seen the program on PBS but I found this book to be very interesting and filled with detail. My complaint, minor, is that with the inevitable editing of material required by compressing three months of material into a small book or a few hours of video something is often lost. Some details in the program aren't even mentioned in the book and vice versa. I'm still waiting on my copy of the video, apparently it's on a long backorder, but I'd say get both because they make a fascinating combination.

Do you remember seeing this series on PBS earlier this year? This book is a conjuction to this series, but this series was orginally from England and the book too. The book embody a 1999 family, time traveling to the spring of 1900 to live three months as victorians. It's takes place in the south-east part of London, near the millenium dome. The book starts out with the history of late victorian britain and a timeline of 1900 in England. Then, you will read about how they started this project and etc. This book was a great read for me because I learned more than I learned watching this series or in history. This is a great read for anyone, I mean anyone.

This lush book should do more than grace your coffee table. It is a magnificent companion to the PBS "reality" tv show. In a departure from the self-consciousness of the genre, this project was undertaken very seriously and turned out to be dynamic and enriching to all involved. The book supplements the program with a detailed history of the house and of turn-of-the-century society. More detail is given about the Bowler family's experiment in "time-travel", including "behind-the-scenes" tales and commentary that is by turns hilarious, moving, and sometimes, downright horrifying. (If you haven't seen the series, by all means buy the tapes)

The Bowler family is charming and intelligent -- a real family with flaws, but a lovable group of six who gamely and thoroughly threw themselves in this experiment. The book delves much more deeply into the gritty conditions lived, and the joyous lessons learned. (we also find how the "the shampoo dilemma" was resolved!). More is told of Joyce Bowler's ambivalence in being a "lady of the house" and how the emotional experience enlightened and edified her -- and affected her for life.

She wants to go back, and so will you -- and you can, through this hefty, glossy, handsome book.

I really enjoyed this book. The author has a great gift in recognizing irony when he see's it, and a very sharp wit. It was very different than the many other WWII biographies I have read. The situations and circumstances Lynton found himself in during those years are almost unbelievable.
At times his casual, dry approach towards what would seem like a tramatic or dramatic event is puzzling, although he does state on a couple occasions that many of those circumstance have been covered in so many other books that he didn't feel the need to go into depth with them.
His description about what it was like to be an "alien" (German Jew) in Great Britain was interesting, and very ironic that he couldn't become a British citizen, but was good enough to serve in their military.
The chapters about his time in the secret service was fascinating, with a lot of insight on what everyday life was like for civilians and servicemen in post-war Europe.
The book is filled with amazing twists and turns, and even humor in the way he sarcastically explains a situation.
Even though the ending was a little weak (reason for 4 not 5 stars) I would still highly recommend this book and had a hard time putting it down.

that when I closed the final page, I fantasized about writing to Mark Lynton and telling him so! Insightful, humorous and thought provoking about WWII and life in general. Mr. Lynton is the kind of person I would like to sit next to at a dinner party!

Couldn't put it down. The author is a marvelous storyteller, and writes in a wonderfully humorous and detached manner about his part in the War in Europe. As a native German speaker, he found himself initially interned and shipped to Canada for security purposes, and later involved in many improbable situations throughout his service with the British tank corps. It reads as if the author is sitting in the living room relating his tales. Incomparable

Horler's Original Sprite and Midget has to be the most thorough, in-depth look at these great little sports cars. I read and enjoyed the book before I owned my Sprite. Now that I am restoring one, the book is even more valuable to me.

If you are looking for a book that tells the history and folklore of the Sprite, this may not be your book. (Though Horler's brief history is very well written.)

This book covers virtually everything you will want to know about how your Sprite or Midget was made. Painstakingly researched and endlessly detailed. I refer to my copy constantly.

The complete original series on postwar classic cars are all excellent sources of information. The complete original sprite and midget is full of pictures of correct, original cars. The book also lists of production color and interior options as well as production changes by VIN and engine number.

Please note the book is not a maintanence manual or marque history, but great for production/originality infomation for the restorer or hobbyist fan of these cars.

It is short book for the beginners and including all you want from the dictionaries, grammer, glossar. It was help me very much!

AN AKKADIAN HANDBOOK : Paradigms, Helps, Glossary, Logograms, & Sign List. By Douglas B. Miller and R. Mark Shipp. 163 pp. Winona Lake, Indiana : Eisenbrauns, 1996. ISBN 0-931464-86-2 (pbk.)

This is one of those extremely useful books like Edwin G. Pulleyblank's 'Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar' (1995) - in other words, _NOT_ a textbook for lesson-by-lesson study of a language, but a handy compendium and reference work which packs a lot of information into a convenient and easy-to-consult package, and which can help solve problems that can crop up when engaged in the study of a formal textbook.

The basic resources included in the present reference work are paradigms of nouns and verbs, a glossary of common proper names, an index of single and composite logograms, an index of Akkadian words commonly written in logograms, a reverse index of composite logograms by constituent sign number, and a complete sign list accompanied by a comprehensive index of all sign values. In short, the book summarizes all of the basic resource materials needed for the study of Akkadian.

The book is a full-sized 8vo (9 by 6 inches), beautifully printed on good paper, and is bound in a reasonably sturdy glossy wrapper, though unfortunately it has a glued spine and won't open flat. The idea that books should be openable seems, like much else, to have fallen victim to progress.

But hey! You can't have everything, and perhaps we should be happy with what we have been given - a well-organized and well-printed manual that all students of Akkadian will find indispensable. It makes a perfect companion to the excellent Marcus self-teaching manual for beginners :

A MANUAL OF AKKADIAN by David Marcus. 182 pp. New York : University Press of America, 1978. ISBN 0-8191-0608-9 (pbk.)

Equipped with these two, serious application should soon see anyone reading passages in cuneiform from 'The Code of Hammurapi,' 'The Descent of Ishtar,' and 'The Annals of Sennacherib' with real enjoyment.

First off, this book will NOT teach you Akkadian. (For that, use Huehnergard's "Grammar of Akkadian", and be sure to get the companion "Key to a Grammar of Akkadian"). But if you have already started learning Akkadian, whether with Huehnergard, Riemschneider, Caplice, or Marcus, this book will help you immensely. Part I is a summary of paradigms, concentrating obviously on verbal forms. Part II is "Helps"; alphabetical order, alternate terminology for verbs, numbers, common abbreviations, etc. Part III is a 30-page or so compilation of proper names you'll come across. The heart of Part IV is a listing of the most common cuneiform signs (Neo-Assyrian variant). It is based on the sign lists of Labat and Borger. There are several indices to look up a sign, given its syllabic or logographic value. Again, this book won't teach you Akkadian, but as a companion volume to whatever text you're using, it's well organized, easy to use, and darn near indispensible.

Adkins brings out the strenghts and weaknesses of our military at that time and shows how this, but for the bravery of the rangers , could have been a catastrophe. One glaring error, on p284 the casualties listed on the calivigny raid are improper.Slater and Lannon are correctly named however the third casualty was not Sebastian Greiner but Philip S. Grenier. I can assure you of this since I am his father. Sure wish I could correct the error or at least contact the Publisher or author. Mr. Jean A. Grenier

"We blew them away," a senior White House advisor remarked regarding the overwhelming success of the invasion of Grenada in late 1983. For the first time in history, a democratic nation had crushed a Marxist regime-and did so with few casualties. To the untrained eye, it seemed that the U.S. military had operated flawlessly in defeating the communists in Grenada. However, the British Major Mark Adkin, Commanding Officer of the Caribbean Peace-keeping Force (CPF), contests that theory and counters in his book Urgent Fury that the U.S. armed forces came extremely close to a major political defeat. Adkin asserts that American forces were never in jeopardy of losing the battle for Grenada. However, he believes that the U.S. military command had committed major flaws in the planning and carrying out of Operation Urgent Fury. These leaders narrowly escaped insurmountable American deaths through luck and through the battlefield intuition of lower grade officers.
Adkin's main assertion is that the invasion of Grenada was not the staunching success that the military and the Reagan Administration heralded. Adkin draws out several major accounts of compromised military objectives and traces all of these back to poor planning on a senior officer's part. From the initial invasion on October 25 to the "all-clear" in December, the military units involved were sent out on poorly planned and uncoordinated missions that nearly cost America numerous casualties. Fortunately the U.S. had on its side overwhelming superiority and availability of American fire support to bail out our forces from near defeat.
The invasion of Grenada was divided into two major sections. The first was the U.S. Marine landing in the northern division of the island. The second assault was in the southern portion of the island and was composed of elements from the Navy SEALS, U.S. Army Rangers, Delta Force, and the 82nd Airborne-the Army's elite paratroop division.
It is in the second assault which Adkin details most in the book. This is because of the fact that it was in the southern portion of the island most of the major complications happened. Adkin has a major bias against the special operations units in the southern assault because he is a member of the British elite and the British and American forces tend to have a friendly rivalry. Adkin's main contention against the American elite units is due to the fact that he was the commander of the third assaulting force on Grenada, the British led CPF. Adkin personally witnessed the planning and carrying out of the invasion of Grenada. Therefore, in Urgent Fury he illustrates just how close America came to shipping home hundreds of body bags.
There are three reoccurring themes in Urgent Fury which show the ineffective leadership of the planners and senior commanders. The first contention the author has is the lack of military intelligence involved in planning the island invasion. The military had not topographical maps of the island and was forced to use outdated British touring maps to plan the invasion. Also, the nature and location of the enemy forces were almost completely unknown to the invading forces. This lack of knowledge resulted in the shooting down of several choppers by Cuban anti-aircraft guns and caused Delta Force to abort two missions. The helicopters simply could not drop the units off in the middle of a firefight.
The second problem was the lack of a fully integrated, interoperable communications system. Unlike the fighting elements which were organized to conduct operations independent of one another, communications systems were not allowed such freedom. Adkin believes that communications was to have been the glue that would tie together the operation of the four independent United States military service elements. Unfortunately, communications support failed in meeting certain aspects of that mission. It cannot be said that communications capability itself was abundant. The author cites several dilemmas in the shortages of communications, but the most compelling is the account of the SEAL assault upon the Governor-General's mansion in which the units were pinned down against an overwhelming force heavy machine guns. Hovering above the men fighting were two large gunships which they were unable to contact through the radio. They were forced to use a telephone in the mansion to call their commander at Fort Bragg, N.C. to gain radio access to the gunships. Adkin points out that the fact that these units could not communicate one-to-one could have caused more casualties from enemy and friendly fire.
However, the most shocking and dangerous part of the mission was the fact that the invasion force lacked precise data on the location of the American medical students they were to rescue. Adkin notes that attack planners did not realize that more than a thousand American medical students were spread out over three locations instead of merely at the True Blue campus in the southern tip of the island. When the Rangers counted the students they realized that there were more than four hundred missing. Fortunately for our sake, Adkin asserts, the Marxist forces did not bother with these students. If the enemy had chosen to use the students as human shields, the battle would have been much bloodier on both the military and civilian sides.
The book raises no real objections to the author validity. Adkin fought in Grenada as a commander and gives first hand account. Furthermore, he also uses primary sources from actual after action reports to support his claims on the fallacies of the senior American command. This book has raised doubts on the quality of leadership involved in the Grenada invasion, but does so logically and with thoroughly grounded contextual evidence. The book challenges our perception as to whether we should believe that superior technology always guarantees battlefield success.
In Grenada, American forces had a five to one ratio in manpower and an overwhelming firepower advantage over the Marxists and yet there were multiple opportunities for disaster. We just were lucky. Adkin believes that we cannot trust luck to guide us in future conflicts. In war, the commanders need to be aware of the potential cost of their actions. He believes that there is no excuse for unsound decisions as they are placing men's lives at risk. There is no replacement for real military leadership.

This is THE book to learn what happened on Grenada in 1983. This battle overlooked today marked the turning point in the Cold War. This was the first American military victory since the Vietnam War and sent a signal to the Soviets that communist expansion would cease under the Reagen administration. Major Adkin's book covers all of this, and points out the fight centered on the 10,000 foot strategic runway at Point Salines which as proven by the vast quantities of arms captured was the transfer point to all of Latin America for violence.

The book shows how the New Jewel Movement collapsed due to personal jealousies and assassinations leading to a swift U.S. plan to invade, which while not perfect, was necessary rather than delay in order to secure American medical students held hostage from harm. Reading the details he lays out of the U.S. Army Rangers parachuting in under 500 feet--under Cuban anti-aircraft guns---to seize the Point Salines airfield is exilherating and well wriitten, and busts open the Hollywood myths foisted by movies like "Heartbreak Ridge" that marines did the fighting and rescuing when their assignments to the north were uncontested, and without any Americans to be rescued. Adkin shows how the PRA and Cubans were dug in on the beaches waiting for a water landing when The Rangers, then the 82d Airborne Division came from the sky, catching them by surprise. Follow on operations had the Rangers rescuing U.S. medical students using mc and U.S. Army helicopters and the 82d Airborne Division fighting against stiff resistance before fanning out to secure the southern half of the island.

The book doesn't flinch however from tactical details and how things could have been done better. He has maps and drawings of where the actions took place that drive his points home, as well as photographs, to include mc helicopters that were shot down, and the leaders and rivals in the New Jewel movement. Readers will enjoy small points like the Ranger officer who used a signal mirrror t! o mark a Cuban recoilless rifle gun in a building for destruction by a TOW missile.

The point derived from this awesome book is that U.S. forces must be ready to conduct no-notice operations and to be able to come from unexpected directions like parachuting from the AIR as well as conventional sea directions. This book is a must-read for anyone in the military today or who has any interest in modern tactical affairs.

AIRBORNE!!

Mike Sparks 1st Tactical Studies Group (A)

This book was well-written, interesting, and a good story until the ending. I felt that the ending was a little hokey.

The author draws you in from the beginning, making you believe you are really experiencing the Chicago of the early 1900's.

The story gives wonderful insight into the "American Experience" of the early immigrants and their continuous struggle to make a new life in a new country - regardless of continued barriers imposed upon them.

The lessons can be applied to anyone who has had to overcome the struggles of diversity and come out feeling stronger because of the experience.

This story centers around a young girl who finds out she has TB . It takes place during the first world war. It is a story of her struggle and her family's strong faith. It is also a love story and has a very interesting plot. The characters live in a Polish neighborhood and are themselves Polish. The Mother is similar to a "I Remember Mama " mother. An old fashioned story with some unusual twists.

The "New Life" was occasioned by Dante's integration of his meeting of the divine Beatrice and the meaning she held for him in his own psyche. As such, it is an indispensable precursor to understanding his "Commedia" trilogy. This work is fascinating because through it we experience Dante's growth, from your run-of-the-mill medieval troubadour praising courtly love, to a man raised to the heights of ecstasy by way of his soul's true guide, Beatrice. A Jungian might say Beatrice was Dante's anima, projected onto a flesh-and-blood woman. But Beatrice is no malicious deciever (as Jung described); she is more akin to Goethe's meaning at the end of "Faust II"--"The eternal feminine/lures to perfection" or Joyce's tranfiguration at the sight of the maiden "gently stirring the water with her foot" in the "Portrait." Dante's work is brilliant not only because it reveals the spiritual urge lying beneath the veneer of romantic love (a collective illusion that our culture still labors under) but because Dante guides us through his own inner journey, from goo-goo-eyed adulator weeping because love 'hurts so good,' through his psychological turn within to question his own need for a woman's "pity," and on to his final integration of the feminine within, no longer dominated by his own unconscious need and able to follow Her from the depths of his own soul to the heights of glory. Mark Musa is also the translator of the highly touted Indiana Critical Edition of the "Commedia." But I found his translation occasionally stilted and unpoetic, when a few changes would have smoothed both verse and prose. The footnotes were nearly useless, their content was often obvious or uninformative. And they are very awkard to use: they are denoted in the text by an * rather than a number and keyed in the Appendix by page number. Unfortunately, only about half the pages are actually numbered, making the system cumbersome indeed. That said, I end with this: Read it and weep. And revel in its majesty.

La Vita Nuova (c. 1293; The New Life) is the first of two collections of verse that Dante made in his lifetime, the other being the Convivio. Each is a prosimetrum, a work composed of verse and prose. In each case the prose is a device for binding together poems composed over approximately a ten-year period. The Vita Nuova brought together Dante's poetic efforts from before 1283 to about 1292-93; the Convivio, a bulkier and more ambitious work, contains Dante's most important poetic compositions from just prior to 1294 to the time of La Divina Commedia.

The Vita Nuova, which Dante called his libello, or little book, is a remarkable work. It contains 42 brief chapters with commentaries on 25 sonnets, one ballata, and four canzoni; a fifth canzoni is left dramatically interrupted by the death of Beatrice (perhaps Bice Portinari, a woman Dante met and fell in love with in 1274 but who died in 1290). In Beatrice, Dante created one of the most celebrated women in all of literature. In keeping with the changing directions of Dante's thoughts and career, Beatrice underwent enormous changes in his hands--sanctified in the Vita Nuova, demoted in the canzoni (poems) presented again in the Convivio, only to be returned with more profound comprehension in La Divina Commedia as the woman credited with having led Dante away from the "vulgar herd" to Paradise.

The prose commentary provides the frame story, which does not emerge from the poems themselves (it is, of course, conceivable that some were actually written for occasions other than those alleged). The story, however, is simple enough and tells of Dante's first sight of Beatrice when both were nine years of age, her salutation when they were eighteen, Dante's expedients to conceal his love for her, the crisis experienced when Beatrice withholds her greeting, Dante's anguish that she is making light of him, his determination to rise above the anguish and sing only of his lady's virtues, anticipations of her death in that of a young friend, the death of Beatrice's father, and Dante's own premonitory dream, and finally, the death of Beatrice, Dante's mourning, the temptation of the sympathetic donna gentile (a young woman who temporarily replaces Beatrice), Beatrice's final triunph and apotheosis, and, in the last chapter, Dante's determination to write at some later time about Beatrice, "that which has never been written of any woman."

Yet, with all of this apparently autobiographical purpose, the Vita Nuova is strangely impersonal. The circumstances it sets down are markedly devoid of any historical facts or descriptive detail (thus making it pointless to engage in debate as to the exact historical identity of Beatrice). The language of the commentary also adheres to a high level of generality. Names are rarely used...Cavalcanti is referred to three times as Dante's "best friend," Dante's sister is referred to as "she who was joined to me by the closest proximity of blood." On the one hand, Dante suggests the most significant stages of emotional experience, but on the other, he seem to distance his descriptions from strong emotional reactions. The larger structure in which Dante arranged poems written over a ten-year period and the generality of his poetic language are indications of his early and abiding ambition to go beyond the practices of the local poets.

The Italian of the Vita Nuova is Dante's own gorgeous Tuscan dialect, a limpid, ethereal and luminous Italian that seems as though it could have been written yesterday. In chapter XXX of the Vita Nuova, Dante states that it was through Cavalcanti that he wrote his first book in Italian rather than in Latin. In fact, Dante dedicated the Vita Nuova to Cavalcanti--to his best friend (primo amico).

Anyone who can, should definitely read this beautiful book in its original Italian, but those who cannot can still enjoy the beauty of Dante in a good translation. The book isn't as difficult or intimidating as La Divina Commedia and it makes a beautiful introduction to those who love Dante but just want to enjoy a little less of him in the beginning.

It's hard not to assign 5 stars to this early work of the author of the Divine Comedy. In any serious Dante course, a professor will usually pick the Vita Nuovo as an introduction to Dante's work. The work is not at all intimidating -- rather, it's quite accessible to the modern reader. Dante, in his youth, writes a series of love tributes to Beatrice, his ultimate guide in the Divine Comedy. Anyone who is contemplating reading the Divine Comedy should start here and read this first as mandatory background to the Commedia. Dante rules!

This book only contains brief biographies from five winan pejuta (medicine women), but does not teach the spiritual beliefs of these medicine women.

If you want to read about some of the abilities of medicine and holy people this would be a fairly good place to start.

If you want to understand the spiritual beliefs, and possibly work toward becoming a medicine or holy person; look elsewhere.

My Indian, and Shamanism listmania lists can help you in that search for spiritual beliefs of the American Indians.

I encourage questions and comments about reviews; Two Bears

Wah doh Ogedoda (We give thanks Great Spirit)

I got this book over a week ago and on the way back from Rosebud I read it to my boyfriend while we drove back to oklahoma. We both agreed that this book should be a must for all native American students and also anyone that wants to know about the Lakota Woman. I'm still trying to consume it all. Great book!!! Linda mcgann and Joe Hacker....

Walking in the Sacred Manner is a must read for anyone wanting to learn more about Native American spirituality. It not only gives wonderful accounts of several "medicine women" and how they were called to serve, but gives the "Lakota creation story", and the story of the "White Buffalo Calf Madien" who brought ceremony and rituals to the people that are still practiced today. This book is "good medicine".

This book was a real hoot to read. Ive always loved the language that revolved around the game of baseball. Ring Lardner does a credible job of creating this youthful prospect trying to make big in The Show. The format of writing letters gives it a touch a realism. The language and grammar of this semiliterates lend it a charm that is slightly reminiscent of Huck Finn. His delusional arrogance is more humorous than offensive in the long run. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the literature and journalism that surrounds this great American game.

Ring Lardner's 'You Know Me Al' is a classic of American literature. Continuing in a tradition established by Mark Twain, Ring Lardner writes in a style that captures the dialogue and spirit of the common man.

The sports characters are timeless and their characteristics and foibles are as true today as they were a century ago. And the characteristics really transcend baseball and sports entirely and apply to everyone.

This is a great book and a very enjoyable read.

The travails of the boastful, blame-shifting, naive-unto-the-point-of-stupidity White Sox rookie first went into print 85 years ago. It's one of the miracles of 20th century fiction -- or a comment on the eternal childishness of America's national pastime -- that the bush leaguer's absurd confidences to a friend back home are still fresh and funny. "I have not worked yet Al and I asked Callahan to-day what was the matter and he says I was waiting for you to get in shape. I says I am in shape now and I notice that when I was pitching in practice this A.M. they did not hit nothing out of the infield. He says That was because you are so spread out that they could not get nothing past you. He says The way you are now you cover more ground than the grand stand. I says Is that so? And he walked away." Yeah, this is clearly the same sport where the portly John Kruk turned aside a question a few years ago about conditioning with the Bartlett's-worthy, "We're not athletes. We're ballplayers."

Lardner does more than get laughs at the expense of his dense protagonist, though. He gives an intimate picture of baseball in its first classic era -- the busher comes face to face with Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker and Walter Johnson with interesting results. But it's not a sentimental depiction of the age: Among those with whom the busher crosses paths is the famously parsimonious and autocratic White Sox owner, Charles Comiskey. The book gives a hint of the resentments that led his players to agree to throw a World Series (as they did a few years after Lardner wrote "You Know Me Al") and illustrates the indentured servitude that all but the best players endured before free agency arrived in the mid-'70s.

This is a very interesting story to say the least. Of the aliens comics I would say it is one of the more sought after books because it features, yes, a Jockey (AKA Big elephant thing in the space ship in alien) spawned alien. Also, this book, like many others in the series, features characters that to some degree resemble celebrities. I can make out a definite Gina Gershon along with other **familiar** faces. I gave this four stars because it was too short of a read, and lacked good characterization and ALIENS, there were very little aliens in this book, and the ones that were in the book weren't drawn very well. The _Jockey-Alien_ isn't such a big deal, but hardcore alien fans this is a must.

From the title, I really was expecting just another military-operation gone wrong title, but this book was a pleasant surprise. Going back to the time before the Human-Alien Wars, to a time when, 20 years after the first Alien movie, most people don't even know the creatures exist, this book explores the creatures' origins. Why are there here, and who put them there?

Of course, these questions aren't all answered, leaving the door open for more Aliens: Apocalypse -- titles, but it's a refreshing and thoughtful changes. The interesting rescue story is complemented by good dialogue, typically wonderful artwork (some of the Aliens comics are so badly drawn it's incredible), and yes, a few action sequences.

While I liked that they were trying to explain the aliens, I didn't agree with the explanations, and this book somewhat contradicts previously published Aliens comics, making it hard to accept as part of a whole. Still, this is quite an enjoyable comic, one that should be read by every Aliens fan.

This graphic novel belongs to the Aliens universe. I have read all of these novels, but in my opinion, this one is the best. It picks up many loose ends from the first movie, such as the origin of the "Stargazer" race that H.R. Giger put in the alien derelict.

The story deals not only with the classic "Humans hunting aliens" - theme, but goes deeper, exploring the origins and deeper purpose of this terrible race. This leads to a whole new perspective on our own place in the universe.

And this novel does all of that without once becoming less thrilling and suspenseful than the others!

The artwork is beautiful, die-hard readers will see much of H.R. Giger's original Alien design.

So, if the Alien movies got under your skin - buy this one. You won't regret it!