I met Tony Noguera in late 1969 when he was travelling through Africa researching his book. In many ways the book was ahead of its time but Tony should have taken steps to "establish" himself either by getting some academic qualifications or becoming a journalist. In the event he did neither and allowed his father to pay for its publication by a vanity press. I think this was very unfortunate because had Tony continued his line of research he would have been part of the rising tide of researchers who dsicovered strong African infleunces not only in Egypt but Greece and elsewhere.

Despite the potentially controversial subject matter -- an African-American athlete accused of rape -- Stockley has written another amiable, charming page turner. Lots of Southern atmosphere, agreeable characters, plot twists that are only semi-predictable. If I didn't fly so much, no doubt I would be reading more serious stuff (Proust? Mann? Musil? In my dreams), But there are times when only undemanding fare will do. And Stockley's a reliable fellow when the need arises. You won't read it with fevered excitement, but you won't be sorry you plucked it off the wire racks, either.

Chapter 10 of this book contains the best exposition I have found to date regarding contruction of an OAS model for MBS. On the downside, in the process of replicating the model I have not been able to reproduce the interest rate cap prices on page 171 nor the the output of the prepayment model aging function depicted graphically on page 184, figure 6.

On the cap price issue, all inputs to the cap pricing were reproduced exactly, so that the failure to reproduce the prices themselves is a mystery.

Regarding the prepayment aging function it does not appear that the function presented in equation (22) on page 183, using the GNSF model coefficients, produced the output contained in figure 6, on page 184.

I point out these two issues in order to indicate the extent to which replicating the results of this chapter are possible. Finally, I was dissapointed in the willingness of the author to respond to clarifying questions regarding the presented material. I was surprised when I did not receive a response because the author was eager to answer a prior inquiry from me asking about the appicability of his chapter to my MBS modeling interests.

In any event, the chapter provides the best documentation of OAS model construction I have found. For those practitioners wanting to learn how to construct a workable OAS model for MBS fixed rate pass throughs I highly recommend chapter 10 of this book.

No offense to today's military, especially the grunt soldier, the Private, but this book is right up their alley. The Commandant of the Marine Corps once said this book is one of his top 10 must read books, and he made it required reading for all enlisted soldiers at Paris Island.

Well, this is a great story of triumph and bravery, however it is poorly written, and belongs at the private level. It is penned by a 60+ year old man who is thinking like a 16 year old boy, which makes it a perfect read for those who prefer the simpler things in life. No big words, no technical jargon, just strictly a story told as a man would tell it to his best friends at a party.

I really did enjoy this tale of a 14 year old who joined the Marine Corps and lived through 3 major campaigns to become a highly decorated Marine...all before he was 18, but the writing itself was enough to keep me from giving this anything higher than what it is.

It was a good book, though boring at times.

If you're a fan of Evelyn Anthony's many thrillers, you may be disappointed with THE LEGACY. The storyline is flat, although Ms. Anthony is very good at developing her characters. Missing is action and suspense which were hallmarks of previous books, especially the Davina Graham espionage series. This book concerns an estate, inherited by the second wife for her daughter. Her stepsons seek to contest this by employing unsavory methods. Ms. Anthony is at her best at characterisations. You do feel strongly one way or the other about the characters. In LEGACY, one character remains unknown until the end. Nazism is again a theme as it has been in other books. If you're a true fan of Evelyn Anthony's, you might come away with a feeling of missing something.

Appearing anonymously as "By the Author of Nina Balatka", "Linda Tressel" was the second and last installment in Anthony Trollope's attempt to establish an alternative literary persona that could deviate from the Trollopian staples (not that the deviation was very startling; maidens urged to marry men whom they don't love are not exactly an unknown subject to our author).

Like the earlier book, "Linda" takes place in a foreign city that the author had recently visited, in this case Nuremberg, and deals with the effect of religious bigotry on love and marriage. This time, instead of violently opposing a union, the bigoted aunt is trying to promote one, and the heroine struggles to escape into either spinsterhood or the arms of a more acceptable lover than the middle-aged boor who has been picked out for her.

The personae of "Linda Tressel" - all odd ducks except for Linda herself - belong to comedy, and a work in that vein might have succeeded. Trollope chose, however, to write a tale that becomes progressively grimmer, eventually toppling the lightweight characters. The book was not a total failure. It drew praise from Henry James (who guessed the author's identity from stylistic clues) and has both lively and pathetic moments. On the whole, though, one does not, after putting it down, feel deep regret that the "alternative Trollope" had no further literary career.

I guess I'm not all that surprised that it's out of print. This isn't a teaching guide. Instead, Saidy gives a chapter on each of several modern players (Fischer, Tal, etc.) and tries to explain how he (the player, not Saidy) advanced chess ideas. There's usually 2 or 3 games shown per player, which in actuality isn't enough to characterize that player. I think the book could be tighter in showing the connection between one generation's ideas and the next generation's refinements.

What's interesting is that Saidy is unapologetically in favor of creativity and experimentation. You'd think it's better lose brilliantly than win a slow, tactical match.

The execution of Mary Dyer is an unfortunate but important part of the early history of the American colonies. She is still a relatively unknown historical figure. I was eager to read this book, and my Quaker meeting's first day school group for adolescents read it together as well. I wanted very much to think highly of it, but it frustrated me, for some of the reasons given in the editorial review. I feel that it isn't sufficiently scholarly or serious--it often reads like a middle school social studies text, and I think Mary Dyer, in all of her own frustrating complexity, deserves better.

I own over 50 books on herbs, and I am always looking for more information. Gardiner's little book (only 63 pages) had a wealth of new information. The early chapters on the history of the first herbalists was very well researched and was not a rehash of what I have read already. In particular, I have never read such a complete story of Culpeper's life.

The remainder of the book dealt mostly with the uses of essential oils and was very complete, though a little dry to read -- no interesting new stories or anecdotes, just facts.