Most residents feel that the storm may be the worst to strike New Orleans just before Mardi Gras in memory. To local attorney, Tubby Dubbonet, the downpour fits his mood as he down on cash and self-esteem. Adding to his misery is the fact that he has inadvertently ran into a trio of criminals planning a heist.

Willie La Rue and his cohorts figure that they can rob a bank and disappear into the hoopla and pageantry of Mardi Gras. The indolent Tubby, not known for his altruistic feelings towards anything but food, decides he must save his city from the invaders. However, the criminals know that the gauntlet has been thrown down and Tubby must be eliminated because he can identify each of them.

The fourth book in the "Tubby" series is by far the best of a very good collection. By caring for something besides his palette, Tubby seems more human and even a half decent individual. The forces of nature playing havoc with the city makes New Orleans feel genuine rather than the usual traveler's guide most novels set in the Big Easy seem to mirror. Amazingly, Tony Dunbar has done raised the bar, which he previously set at a very high of quality, on New Orleans mysteries. Though SHELTER FROM THE STORM is the elite of the lot, all the "Tubby" books are highly recommended for their humorous look at New Orleans.

Harriet Klausner

I read the 1966 (second)edition of this volume and was not aware of updates until opening this site. Despite much political and demographic change in Africa over the last 30-odd years, and despite the availability of much more research and the advent of DNA-based studies, not even heard of in 1966, I found Oliver and Fage's work a pleasure to read. Their chapters are intelligently organized, the flow of ideas and trends unblemished by superfluous detail or tedious asides. The entire continent is covered, North Africa as well as Sub-Saharan, though personally, I felt a little more could have been said about Madagascar. As a reader without a professional stake in African history, I found this book just the thing. It raised many issues that I had not thought of, told me about many patterns and issues of which I had known nothing, and did so in clear, concise language which kept my interest throughout. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in African history. I myself will look for an updated edition to see what the authors say about the last third of a century.

I picked this up on a whim - I like de Maupassant, but since the package didn't list which stories were included on the tapes, it was a bit of a gamble. It paid off, though; Anthony Quayle's reading is very good indeed, and the selection includes a number of stories that I hadn't read before. (The label says "Abridged," but as far as I could tell the individual stories were uncut; it might just mean that this is a subset of stories from a published collection.)

Here's the table of contents as I jotted it down:

Tape 1, Side 1:
Lost at Sea
In the Spring
In the Country
Tape 1, Side 2:
In the Country (cont.)
The Umbrella
A Deal
Playing with Fire
Tape 2, Side 1:
Playing with Fire (cont.)
An Encounter
The Hand
Tape 2, Side 2:
The Hand (cont.)
The Hostelry

Some are dark tales, some very funny ("A Deal," which begins in a courtroom during a trial for attempted murder, is unexpectedly hilarious); some, like "In the Country," are both (and rather cynical - the author doesn't seem to *like* people very much; even in the lightest stories, few of the characters come off in a very good light). Other tales are positively eerie; both "The Hand" and "The Hostelry" have appeared in horror anthologies, and the latter is wonderfully evocative of howling blizzards and snowbound isolation, as it grinds towards its icy, grim conclusion...

The book did several things for me as I would expect Stringfellow to do.He challenges the easiness of our supposed faith. He has honest, justified anger at a God who in the silence of our mourning hearts says nothing to us that he/she has not said before.He grieves,he loves.

There is something rather sadistic in Alan Bennett's portraits of self-delusion in "Talking Heads." In contrast, his short plays (originally teleplays) about very British Soviet spies are more open to complexity. The most interesting characters are Coral Browne as herself in "An Englishman Abroad" and the queen in "A Question of Attribution," though Burgess and Blunt are multidimensional in ways none of the talking heads are. The scene of the queen and Blunt which was played so well by Prunella Scales and Edward (or was it James?) Fox in the BBC production is brilliantly written. Bennett is, indeed, a master at writing lines that give away or seem to give away more than the character understands-or seems to understand. The audience knows best with the "artless" talking heads, but neither Blunt nor the audience can be quite sure if the queen has toyed with him or is as straightforward and concerned with concrete facts as she presents herself as being. "Who did what?" is also very much in question in the "Titians" Blunt is examining and in the puzzle of who was running the spies who were eventually revealed.

The JFK assassination has proven fertile ground for novelists. Anthony Frewin, like many others, takes certain facts surrounding the assassination and cleverly develops a page turing mystery. In this case its the questions surrounding Oswald's trip through England. Indeed, England might seem an odd place for JFK assassination related novel, but Frewin's tale is plausible. Like all good stories this one features a well drawn protagonist. In this case a film editor who stumbles upon information relating to Oswald throught the mysterious death of a friend. One of the more satisfying aspects of the book is that one can never be sure where the story is going. Also, the author leaves the JFK asassination as it is -- an unsolved mystery.

Defenetly a true inspiration. This book will show you apreciation for your sketching and its importance. And it shows you love for the materials. Ever since I got this kit I followed the book and I've learned to look at my surroundings the way it should. I liked this a lot! the materials that come with the kit are great.

We love this book. It is my 6 year old's favorite, and has been since she was three. It is a sweet story about lots of things going to sleep. It has a mother, father, sister and brother in it, and rhyming words. It lulls you to sleep. My daughter got a kick out of the fact that their family was just like ours, right down to the cat! I had a hard time finding it back then, and was only able to get a paperback copy. It may be more readily available now.

Literate,insightful novel wrapped around post war spies in France (Russian, British, Israeli, etc.) and tied in with the Algerian and Suez crises.

Very nice use of color to express the delight of the Northern Navajo Fair. Lucy text is poetic using all aspect of the fair.