The Nancy Drew Notebook series is great for younger Nancy Drew fans. Kids can try to solve the mystery along with Nancy!

This book contains essays prepared for a 1989 lecture series at the Irish Institute for Pastoral Liturgy. They consider the status of liturgy 25 years after Sacrosanctum Concilium. The essays include: Local Church Reception of Conciliar Reform; Women in the Liturgical Assembly; Liturgy: Corporate Public Prayer; Eucharistic Praying and the Good of the Church; Liturgical Language: The Words of Faith; Contemplative Participation;

The essays are interesting an occasionally provocative but with the forecoming new liturgical documents and the decade since the confence, the material is becoming more historical and less a contemporary evaluation.

This book is a very simple interview of Giddens. Though he has enjoyed a worldwide reputation as one of the most important contemporary sociologists, his books tend to simplify many practical issues. It is even more serious as to the transcript of an interview. Young learners might find it helpful to read Giddens's thoeries in plain languages and a Q/A fashion. But those who have mid-term understanding can be dissapointed by the shallowness.

In fact, as the Labour Party came into power, the borderline between scholarship and political influence seems to get blurry for Giddens. He is deemed the mentor for Tony Blair, and his doctrines appear to be closer to political slogans. Readers should examine the coherence of his theories, and scrutinize them more carefully.

In the past few years there seems to have been an explosion of commentary on horror fiction, but the quality of that commentary has been uneven. Some works seem more interested in "justifying" horror as a legitmate genre--they do more cheerleading and gushing than really insightful writing. I find much commentary on King to fall into this category (particularly, Winter's THE ART OF DARKNESS and some commentary on the genre done by Clive Barker). Others are so full of inflated scholarly jargon that it's hard to fight your way through the prose to figure out what the ideas are. Nina Auerbach's OUR VAMPIRES, OURSELVES comes to mind here.

A DARK NIGHT'S DREAMING falls somewhere in the middle. For the most part, this collection is quite readable, but the quality of the essays is uneven. I found little new or insightful in the background essays on the genre or on the influence of film, and that was disappointing. I was also disappointed in the chapter on King. On the other hand, I thought two of the chapters were very good--the one on William Peter Bladdy--which mixed some biographical background with commentary on the novel and the movie adaption of THE EXORCIST quite skillfully. And the chapter on Thomas Harris which really led me to think about THE RED DRAGON and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in a different light--and especially to think about the popularity of "serial killer" fiction and how it fits into the horror genre.

One could hope for a better collection overall, but this one certainly had its moments.

Cronin gives the reader an enjoyable, sometimes amusing, portrayal of three of of Ireland's greatest modern writers: Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O'Brien. His descriptions of pre-fame Brendan Behan are excellent. They show the young and adventurous Behan as he was before fame, drink, and self-parody overtook him. It was somewhat disappointing that Flann O'Brien, author of skilled and imaginative works (At-Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman) was himself an alcoholic with, nonetheless, a bourgeois, sometimes puritanical personality. All these writers (and others everywhere)tended to be petty, egoistic, and hyper-critical, especially about their contemporaries' work. But this does not make them uninteresting, and one should always separate art from artist.

I liked this book, but I would not buy it. If you would like to read it, get it at the Library. Don't waiste your money. The best two stories are the ones by Steven King (The MASTER!) and the one about the spider.

Since writing my thesis, it is hard to fine suitiable material that examines the entire framework of how campaigning is moving into the digital areana. Wilhelm's book is a great start on this emerging field. Complete with statisitcal graphs and charts, Democracy in the Digital Age is ready to answer questions that the reader may have on ecomonic status and how that plays a role on the Internet. The book also researches different communities and how they are addressing the growing trend of democracy moving on the Internet.

Unfortunelty, Wilhelm's expansion beyond the data is sparse as he his mearly reporting the evidence out there. The reader has the luxary of great data but having to come up with a reasonable response on where this is taking humanity.

Great data and supporting evidence presented in a dry academic fashion answering no 'what if' questions would best sum up this book.

Hey fellas, how would you feel if you knew that hot phone-sex operator you wasted $40 on last night was really a GUY? This memoir of life in the highly profitable adult entertainment industry can be funny, but overall it is very disturbing to read about all the horrible things callers make the "girls" say and do. Lots of mysogyny, horrible cursing, sadistic and pedophilic fantasies...but I guess it's better these losers pay some girl (or guy) to take their abuse over the phone than inflict it upon their loved ones or strangers. A very surreal read, not for the faint of heart.

Two English heavyweights sqaure off in the ring to debate that age old question of God's existence. Flew throughout dodges the argument which Meithe presents: the analogy of being. All Flew really does, Meithe catches him on it: "Flew has simply made a statement here." pg. 162. Flew's continuing discussion about the many different notions of God is irrelevant to this debate as Meithe scolds him. Typical is the irritation that continues in never truly debating what Meithe puts forward, i.e. that God is the "merciful Creator and Sustainer of all that exists." Fascinating appendices by Ayer, Swinburne and Kung. A good read!

As a longtime player of Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay (WFRP) I was very happy to see Hogshead pick up the rights to WFRP after Games Workshop abandoned this great product. This is the first new adventure material produced by Hogshead and while welcome, is not neary as good as some of the older adventures in the Enemy Within campaign (Death on the Reik, Power Behind the Throne).

In this adventure, the players are racing against time to forstall an ancient prophecy about the return of a Daemonic entity in and around the city of Marienburg. The problem is in trying to maintain a coherent storyline when each chapter is being plotted by different authors. In the end, the adventure comes across as a mish-mash of interesting ideas but the coherency is lost. It is still a good book, however, just not great. There is a good balance of investigation and action and would suit pretty much any gaming group.