It was quite an enjoyable read for us Brittain and Holtby fans. It interesting how she is still relevent in this day and age, how she really doesn't seem "dead" from a forgotten era. In this book you can find the little tidbits about Vera that speak to your own emotions even now, that make the person whole.

A collaboratively written biography by the late Paul Berry (who was Vera Brittain's close friend for 28 years and her literary executor) and London-based biographer Mark Bostridge, Vera Brittain: A Life is a lengthy and informative survey of the life and times of the writer, pacifist, and feminist Vera Brittain (1893-1970), who is perhaps best known as the author of "Testament of Youth," the memoir of her traumatic World War I experiences. The crushing loss of her fiance, younger brother, and two friends in World War I, her uphill battle to earn recognition as a writer, her controversial stance against the Allies' saturation bombing of Germany in World War II, and a great deal more are engagingly examined in thorough, candid detail. Vera Brittain is very highly recommended as a solidly written, deeply engaging, and totally involving study of a unique and outspoken woman's life.

"Victorian Vapours," and the other books in the Smelly Old History series, provide a fun way to expose the reluctant history student to some aspects of history. Dobson provides seemingly accurate information on some of the more common aspects of daily life during the Victorian period. The books are quite enjoyable and recommendable.

All of Mary Dobson's "Smelly Old History" books are an excellent way for elementary students to learn history and take whiffs of the many foul smells along history's timeline. The kids get so excited to smell the next foul smell they forget they are learning historical facts as they go. My first grade boy loves the books, but loves scratching the smells best. Some of the facts are a bit beyond 1st grade and younger, but they will still love the books. Ideal for 3rd-5th graders, who have some knowledge of ancient history and can remember names of people and important events in history. Excellent and fun choice for any elementary age student as a gift or for school.

I have used this book for over ten years now as one of the texts in an intermediate level cognitive science course on perception and action. Each year I review the new offerings in the field, and each year I come back to this book as the best available. Its greatest strengths are (1) the thoroughness with which it covers both the theoretical disputes and the empirical literature on vision, (2) its broadly interdisciplinary nature, including work from the neurosciences, artificial intelligence, and human and animal behavior, and (3) its emphasis on the deep connections between how we see and how we move. This combination of approaches is simply not to be found in any other book on vision. Understanding the last of these -- that the way we see is thoroughly integrated with how we move about in the world -- will change your view of a great many things about human nature.

What keeps it from being perfect? The writing style of the book is clunky at times, and sometimes the exposition isn't as clear as it could be, so that readers who are new to the subject may have to work hard at some points to understand some of the more complex material. However, you'll be rewarded for your efforts if you make them. All in all, a great introduction to a fascinating set of issues.

Whatever your interest area is, related to perception, of course, here you can find a very complete guide to visual perception; not very simple, neither too deep, just what you need for becoming almost an expert in a short time.

I think that this book is a good book to get an overall idea of some of the issues that we are being faced with in this decade. Many Christians, and even non-Christians, don't know where they stand with certain issues in life. This helps to think about an issue rather than just had emotions about a topic or issue.

As I read this book I thought that this author did a great job of giving a lot of great information but made it easy to understand to the average person. After reading it I thought that I had a good understanding of what medical ethical problems were out there and how I might deal with them

Being a furry myself, I was drawn to this book simply by looking at the cover art. In fact, the art throughout (even at the beginning) is really sweet compared to what else was out there at the time. The character development and facial expressions are there, and done quite nicely, although Mark (rest his soul) doesn't explain where Maya (the elephant) comes in...she's just there starting in one chapter and then for the duration. Speaking of development you see friendship begin between Marphissa and Alix, not to mention how the girls start to develope the muscles and strength necessary to be warriors. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, cover to cover, and can promise you won't regret making this purchase.

Granted, I'm biased as I apprenticed to Mark Wallace under his alias of Baron William Blackfox of the SCA. Well known throughout the SCA world for his portraits and comic strips dealing with SCA life in a furry vein, Vixen's Keep is a tribute to both him and the women of the society that worked with him to compile a book that sums up all the difficulties of being a woman in a man's world.

If you are not familiar with the SCA, don't worry, it does not make any difference to the story. Set in the middle ages, with delightfully colorful characters, the story focuses on a girl's school of both the fighting and the social arts. Captain Rose is more than just a seasoned warrior with the foxy attributes that come with it, but she is also a wise mentor for many young women, struggling to overcome their own weaknesses and difficulties.

Captain Rose's driving ambition is to keep the fighting ladies of the middle ages from being labeled as either dykes or frail flowers putting on a show, but making them people in their own right, to be respected by their own merits, not by the merits of whatever man that speaks for them.

Not Feminist by a long shot, but rather Fem-affirming, it focuses on what is good about being female, rather than what is bad about being a man. A definate up beat book that has me smiling everytime I read it. An excellent tribute to the late Mark Wallace and his wit & humour. His tallent will be missed.

Mary Spencer writes a wonderful story with two remarkable characters. Margot has a horrible stutter but doesn't let that limit herself. Ever since she was eight years old, she has loved Eric who was kind to her when others were mean to her because of her stutter. Now ten years later, he comes back into her life to protect her from a foul villian who wants to marry her for unscrupulous reasons.
Their loves grows as they journey from her home into the safety of his. There are also many wonderful secondary characters such as Eric's brothers and Margot's best friend.
There is also enough passion but doesn't go too far for those who are squemish with steamy love scenes. Overall a sweet story. Margot is a gem and Eric a true hero.
If you like stories set during the Middle Ages with intrigue, passion and unduring love, check out The Vow.

This book is a lot of fun. It's is original in that the damsel is in pursuit of the knight instead of the other way around. She's honest with her feelings and appears to be more courageous than helpless. It's a delightful book that makes you laugh as well as pull your heartstring.

Like other works by Yerger, "Waffen SS Commanders" is primarily a picture history. It also has nice 2+ page biographies of the military careers of senior Waffen SS officers. There are occasional passing references to their lives after the war, but nothing beyond 1-liners. Some of the biographies are of well known figures such as Dietrich and Hausser whom you can read of elsewhere, but this is probably the only place you will find biographies of minor figures such as Jungkuntz and Hampel. This is the first volume of what is intended to become a 4-volume series, and alphabetically only goes up to Kreutz. Guess who wrote the preface to this book!

Waffen-SS Commanders is a two-part series on the major commanders of the Waffen-SS, perhaps the most controversial fighting formation in history. Yerger's sympathies with his subjects shows, but he is willing to distinguish between SS officers who conducted themselves in a professional manner and proved themselves in combat and the political favorites of Himmler who rose from the ranks of the German Polizei and whose units were particularly brutal in anti-partisan operations but were no match against professional soldiers. Examples of the former include Otto Baum, Heinz Harmel (whose treatment of prisoners and civilians at Arnhem earned praise from the Allies-General Harmel is still alive and at nearly 100 years of age still conducts his daily life in the same way as he did as a soldier), Paul Hausser and others. The lesser lights among the commanders of the Waffen SS include Friderich Jeckeln, Curt von Gottberg, and Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who testified for the prosecution at Nuremberg out of survival and not remorse for any actions-his brutality during the 1944 Warsaw uprising and his granting of POW status to Polish insurgents to insure that he would not be branded a war criminal in the eventuality of a German defear are documented by Yerger. To his credit, von den Bach did not renege on his promise to the Poles, although had Germany somehow won the war or negotiated a separate peace with the West, the Poles probably would have suffered a different fate.

As controversial a subject as the Waffen-SS was, not all of the commanders could be considered brutal criminals or incompetent as portrayed by revisionist history. To be sure, they served an ideology which was evil and most of the commanders were members of the NSDAP, but the majority of SS commanders were in fact professional soldiers equivalent to their army counterparts in the Wehrmacht. Most of these commanders did conduct themselves in a correct manner and fought with honor for their country, even if the regime they served had few redeeming qualities. It is a tribute to these commanders that the Waffen-SS still arouses much passion, even today, and most modern armies today use tactics and innovations which originated with the Waffen-SS over 50 years ago.

"Walking Words" is an intriguing volume by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano. The book has been translated into English by Mark Fried. Galeano's text is enriched on nearly every 2-page spread by the woodcut illustrations of Jose Francisco Borges.

Like Galeano's superb "Book of Embraces," this is a book that defies a simple classification by genre. "Walking Words" is made up of a series of stories that are interspersed with short pieces that often read like mini-essays or prose poems. Most of the stories contain fantastic elements: a talking dog, a man who wants to become pregnant, human/animal transformations, etc. The short interludes are sometimes humorous, sometimes philosophical, sometimes mystical. Many of the interludes reflect on the nature of language and writing. In this book Galeano draws on Guarani Indian belief, the Cabala, Christian theology, Latin American folk custom, and other sources.

Borges' woodcuts are a marvelous text on their own: he captures human, animal, and supernatural images that are often whimsical and/or grotesque. Overall, a fascinating book; I especially recommend it to those who are interested in Latin American literature.

Galeano is an author well worth reading solely for his unconventional techniques - a series of small pieces of story, history ... slowly building a coherent whole while standing "complete" on their own. Walking Words is an excellent introduction to his style (Book of Embraces is the other starting point I would recommend). Initially you can believe that you are reading traditional tales but by the time you get to the whorehouse you realize that his humor has caught you again. A few stories further and you see that the stories hold together as a whole providing insight both into human nature and the political realm. The illustrations are absolutely a perfect foil for the text. This is definately a book to foist off on friends as a "must read" - it appeals to a very wide audience. END

I really enjoyed this novel, and I'm very happy to own the limited edition book. This is part of the "Lost Lansdale" series that Subterranean Press has been doing such an awesome job with. Waltz of Shadows, as Lansdale himself explains, was written in the early 90's, but Joe did not feel it was up to standards and decided not to publish it. Supposedly, this will be the only edition of this book for the forseeable future.

Waltz of Shadows is indeed flawed, and Lansdale was wise to keep it in the trunk. But for an avid Lansdale reader such as myself, the book is very enjoyable anyway. When I say it is flawed, I don't mean in any kind of hopeless way. The writing is tight, and pure Lansdale. There are, however, a few clumsy linchpins in the plot, and a few of the characters are struggling to be something they're not. But anything I noticed was easily forgiven, and I charged right through the book very quickly.

If this is still available, I'd say grab it for your Lansdale collection for sure. But if you're just a casual fan, I'd say stick with the many more modestly priced Lansdale novels that are in print.

WALTZ OF SHADOWS by Joe R. Lansdale was first written back during the early nineties in a much longer version for Mysterious Press. Because the author felt he'd missed the mark in the writing of this mainstream novel, he had it pulled from publication and more or less let it sit in a trunk for the next several years. When Subterranean Press expressed an interest in doing a signed, limited edition of it, Mr. Lansdale took the book out of storage and trimmed over two hundred pages off of the manuscript. Though he felt better about the final result, there was still a lot of trepidation with regards to seeing the book published. Why? I have no idea. This is a terrific novel! When I read his introduction to it, I was expecting a clunker with maybe a few shining moments. Instead, I found myself hooked in the first twenty pages and then propelled forward like a human cannon ball being fired from one end of the circus tent to the other. WALTZ OF SHADOWS is the story of Hank Small-a pretty nice guy who owns a video store and has a great wife and two wonderful children-and what happens to him when his young nephew, Billy, calls him for help. It seems that Billy got involved in a yuppie gang of young people who enjoyed perverted sex and courting death for that sharp adrenaline rush. One night when the gang decides to do a home invasion in order to score a little cash, they encounter two men (Fat Boy and Snake) at their intended victim's home who are the personification of death itself. Billy manages to escape, but the rest of the gang is tortured and murdered. Billy knows that he's being hunted by the two psychos and wants his uncle Hank to help him out of this dilemma. Not knowing quite what to do, Hank turns to his half brother, Arnold, who he hasn't talked to in over ten years. Arnold is one tough hombre and has spent a bit of time in prison. Hank realizes that if anyone will know how to handle the two psychopaths, it'll be him. Before the two brothers can even get a game plan rolling, however, Fat Boy and Snake find Billy and do a little good-natured torturing to see who knows about them. From that point on, nobody in the Small family is safe. If Hank wants to keep his wife and children alive, both he and Arnold are going to have to prepare for a bloodbath. WALTZ OF SHADOWS is dark, violent, intense, and utterly suspenseful. Fat Boy and Snake are two of the vilest criminals I've ever read in fiction. They're ruthless and evil in every sense of the word, and totally believable. When they invade Hank's home, humiliating him and raping his wife, the reader is stunned and left speechless by the graphic violence and how realistically it's described. Mr. Lansdale doesn't pull any punches. He sets the ground rules for what's to follow so that the reader will understand Hank and Arnold's need for absolute revenge, and that it's going to be a fight to the death with no mercy shown by either side. All of the characters are avidly drawn, and the prose is pure Lansdale at its best. Except for Andrew Vachss, I don't know of any other author who could've written a novel of such darkness and violence, and still have the protagonists maintain their humanity. This novel is definitely a winner! I hope Mr. Lansdale will eventually allow it to be published in a mass-market paperback format so that thousands of other readers will get to experience this "dark time in the dark woods." HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

This book (and its second volume: Military Operations since 1871) are both required texts for my Military History class. Most students claim to only rapidly skim required reading for classes, but I've managed to read everything so far (if that tells you anything). As far as material is concerned, this text is both wide-ranging and thourough, describing the invention and development of military techniques as well as discussing the society and government of the time, and how all these factors influence eachother. Highlighted areas include the Thirty Years War and the development of limited war, and the progression though the Napoleonic Wars to almost complete total war during the War Between the States. This book does an excellent job in tying all these early battles together and showing the overall development of warfare. However, if you are interested in nitty-gritty facts on Waterloo or Gettysburg, find a book specific to that battle instead of the sweeping panoramic view this book provides.

This book is the result of the collaboration of a number of the best military historians in the US today, including Mark Grimsley, George Herring, John Lynn, and many others, skilfully tied together by the editors (who are also major contributors), Professor Ira Gruber of Rice University and Colonel Robert A. Doughty of West Point. The result is an outstanding survey of modern Western military history designed for undergraduate history courses, but easily accessible to the general reader as well. The prose is exceptionally clear and the ideas lucidly presented. These two volumes are definitely focussed on the operational level of the "military art" (i.e. on the planning and conduct of campaigns), with some treatment also of strategy, tactics, and technology, but very litte material on "war and society" subjects (i.e. how wars and military developments have affected society and vice-versa). This makes it especially useful for ROTC military history classes, but it is also a very good introduction to the "sharp end" of military history for scholars or students whose main interests lie in the effects of war, rather than its conduct.