What a terrible book - not only is it difficult to read - but missing much of common Ecology viewpoints and basics. Worthless, absolutely worthless - anyone want to by mine - cost of postage. If not, I'll just burn it.

I have to admit this was a sale table buy and I wish I had left it there. I have a hard time really getting into a British character if it is not well written and these characters were not. Unless you are a big fan of this author, my advice is the stay away.

If you ever take one of Deluca's class you know that he displays favoritism and he is also extremely arrogant. You know your grade on the exam because of the way he talks to you in class. Deluca may have extremely high intelligence but extremely low emtional intelligence.
I find this book to be bland and boring just like all of his lectures.

Tambasco is a name-caller. Everyone who isn't theologically liberal in an extreme fashion Tambasco refers to as a "fundamentalist". While I refer here partly to his lectures, his book reflects this bent. Tambasco often engages in pseudo-intellectual bullying. It is his common method. And what is this about Paul not believing in Jesus' sin-erasing sacrifice? In the context of the entire New Testament -- my goodness -- this is not scholarship, but intential obstinacy, methinks.

The world of money and the money makers around 1990.
The author correctly states that money has become a new religion: Today it is the bank manager rather than the priests who are the guardians of people's secrets and confessionals, who see the world (as they say) 'with their trousers down'.
But the investigation is too superficial.
The only point the author really scores is his observation that we have seen the end of Veblen's leisure class: 'Work, which has so long been associated with drudgery, is now essential to importance and status ... the orders of time have been reversed: the rich will rise at dawn, the poor sleep late'.
A waste of time.

'Utterly engaging' screams the quote on the cover, then you notice it refers to a different book. Take that as a warning. Even the publishers couldn't find anything good to say about this effort.

Midnight Come is supposed to be a clerical whodunit, a murder mystery set within the religious community surrounding Canterbury Cathedral in England. For the first 20 pages or so, I thought the author might bravely be attempting to create the olde-worlde "gas and gaiters" style of this sort of fiction from the 50's. After 50 pages, I realised this book is purely a self-absorbed exercise in convoluted and precocious sentence construction and grammar, something that only my high school English master could have enjoyed. There are hardly any nouns without adjectives or verbs without adverbs, and more clauses and subclauses to most sentences than I thought possible. The result is pages covered with the most excruciatingly pompous language I've ever read. Needless to say, I couldn't read much of it.

The characters! The ex-military intelligence man, now a senior church official, with the "jolly hockey sticks" wife, curiously confined to a wheelchair after polio contracted soon after their marriage. The cardboard cutout Deans, vicars, etc., could have leaped out of a Trollope novel. The token Australian, a young, arachnophobic, woman archictect, was so stereotyped, she only just stopped short of "throwing a shrimp on the barbie" (maybe she did, I gave up after 80 pages).

The dialogue! There is not one single person in this world who would ever utter the words put in these character's mouths. "'I'm afraid', she said, dropping her gaze, 'that I suffer a little from arachnophobia.'" As an Australian, I *know* she would have said 'I bloody HATE spiders!', and her gaze wouldn't have dropped an inch.

Do yourself a favour and read something (anything) else. This has only got one star because I couldn't save it with none.

Hard to follow . . . would recommend two other books instead: Thai Massage by Richard Gold and the Thai Massage Manual by Maria Mercati are both excellent choices,

This was the worst ghost story I have ever read. I took this on vacation with me last summer and read it on the beach. Kept waiting for the Orthomorphs to show up in groups but they never even did. I hope nobody tries to make a film out of this one. If you like reading the phone book, you'll love this book.

If you either just happen to be getting out from doing hard time in the big house or have just been fired again from your last of a string of old jobs for showing up drunk or high, and, despite your progressive public (or private) school education in the era of the "Look-Say" method, can actually read a book, this one just might be for you.

In this slender volume with profuse illustration, the authors give sage advice on how to get a job - any job. In the area of improving your luck with job interviews, for example, they advocate: show up on time, bathe, brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on clean clothes and speak only when you are spoken to. Finally, in an air to boost your confidence, after doing all of the above, be sure to take a lucky charm with you.

I'm sure this book will be a top seller in the state-run mandatory employment counseling market as well as to half-way houses, parole officers, social service agencies and the various twelve-step programs in this country.

Not a bad method (and I just outlined it for you) for landing that plum job sacking groceries on your way to a fresh, clean start in middle-aged life.

On the other hand, if you are sober and have a clean police record, in addition to having the disability today of being able to think independently, you will not find answers in this book.

Despite - or, perhaps, because of - one of the author's previous experience writing job manuals for academics, they subscribe to the popular fallacy that you are not your job - that its something apart from you as a person. Excuse me, but unless you are a prisoner against your will in a forced labor camp shovelling corpses into ovens, what you do in life (as well as what you say) does define your character.

If you are tired of only being allowed to do mediocre quality work at best in your current or previous job, work in a highly state-regulated field, one that does not match your sense of integrity, I recommend a positive alternative to spending the seven dollars on this book:

Should you happen to have that amount left over in your bank account after depositing your unemployment check (minus taxes), filled your car with gas and done your laundry; check-out a romantic-heroic movie to watch such as "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Fountainhead", "High Noon", or "Queen Christina." These films will help you to recharge your emotional batteries and to progress in setting new goals to improve your life.

Poor Deluca. The only topic he knows about is cold war. And now its over.