How to Get Into the Bible is a wonderfully laid out book that really brings the messages of the Bible home. Each book of the Bible is reviewed. Timelines and maps of the surrounding areas, found in the first page or so of each review, help the reader keep straight complicated chronological and geographical data. Also at the end of each review is the encore section. This tells the reader where they can find similar material in other books of the Bible.

I really liked the way the book is set-up. I enjoyed the shaded boxes, which highlight famous lines and ask, "did you know" questions about each book of the Bible. The section titled, How We Got Our Bible, is helpful. That is followed by a section highlighting the main points of Bible. This can help those who may not be familiar with many Bible stories. Moreover it serves as a good overview.

This book is great because it is written for a variety of readers from different age groups. Teenagers on up could enjoy this book. You can choose to use the book as a reference book, read it as novel, or just read each review and then read the accompany book.

This book is an excellent companion book for Bible study. It's a great startup book for someone who's new to the Bible and can also serve as a handy quick reference for someone already familiar with the material.

Each book of the Bible is addressed in terms of plot, main characters, the book's relationship to other Bible stories, and more. It's like a well fleshed out study outline in many ways. What I particularly liked is that even the very short books of the Bible are given equal treatment. You'll get ample material about 1 Peter, Micah, Obadiah, and other small books along with the big boys like Isaiah and John.

Time lines help you keep a mental picture of what's going on around the events of each book. Where multiple opinions and theories abound, the authors introduce the reader to a variety of interpretations and the merits of each.

While many of the author asides and comments may prove uncomfortably liberal for evangelicals or fundamentalists, I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in digesting the Bible. It's entertaining and captivating enough to read straight through like a novel, educational enough to use as a supporting study text, and consistantly useful enough to keep it on your reference bookshelves.

I bought this book to be a companion in my bible study, but ended up reading it cover to cover. I like the way the writers have compared in timeline form, known world events and biblical events. They have also included archaeological facts for biblical events.

I read this book to my daughter's kindergarten class and they loved it. The pictures are wonderful, but the best part is its imagination. It encourages kids to think in new ways and inspires creative thinking (and hopefully an interest in the arts). I enjoyed it and heartily recommend it.

I witnessed a teacher using If... with third graders. They were so eager to create their own If... segments. Even children who are skeptical of reading and writing were able to enjoy the follow up activity. Sculptor Sarah Perry sure knows how to spark a child's imagination. No elementary classroom should be without If...

I read this book and immediately usd it as a story prompt for my first grade class. They first drew their own If.. pictures then wrote about them.

This book can standalone as a good spy story, as can the others in this trilogy, but the storyline attains excellence when read in series - Berlin Game, Mexico Set, and London Match. The tension ebbs and flows throughout the trilogy, but it isn't until the climax of London Match that we see the full scope. I honestly think this is the best book of the three, but maybe that's just because all the threads finally come together. Highly recommended!

It's one of those hall-of-mirrors British spy stories in which the puzzle is to figure out who is working for whom, and who is double-crossing whom.
I was rereading my Len Deightons, partly to see how much impact they still have post-cold war, and I picked this one up out of order. After the first few pages I remembered that this was third in the Bernard Samson series, set in the 1970's and 80's, but it has close affinities to the Harry Palmer series of the 60's, especially Funeral in Berlin. (This has a 1985 publication date). If you're completely new to Len Deighton I'd start with those, and of course you should read Berlin Game and Mexico Set before this.
Some people think Deighton deteriorated in the later spy books. They contain fewer wisecracks and less descriptive scene- setting. In compensation there's a lot of subtle humor in the portrayal of the Dilbert-like atmosphere of office politics, and the plots are more sharply focussed and draw naturally to a climax. The earlier books tend to jump from episode to episode with a tidying up of plot in the last chapter.

I would have to agree with many of the other reviewers in stating that this is one of the better Bernard Samson books. It is a good follow up and great end to this series. He pulled off a book that has a good deal of suspense through out. There is also a lot of human drama outside of the spy vs. spy game. If you are into espionage books this is a great set to send time with.

THE WANDERING JEW AND WANDERING JEWESS?
AHASVER CD-ROM ISBN 1895507901 (SALE)! "THE JEW" (I-IIII):
"...Audacious and magnificent." "The book is in both substance and method of the highest originality; it is both fascinating and brilliant; the historic pageant is unrolled with a colorfulness and clearness that astonish me. And I am delighted too by the play of implicit wit, the quaint malice of the innuendos, the symbolic pattern sustained throughout." "...fascinatingly interesting and instructive...very ingenious conception and treatment of the various psychological and philosophical themes...I am particularly impressed with your ingenious way of presenting the various phases of psycho-sexuality....A great work." "It is a remarkably interesting idea to present the pageant of the World as it unfolded before the eyes of the same man during two thousand years. Also, to keep him a young man instead of a doddering grey-beard. It is like reading a series of entrancing short stories with the added interest of logical sequence. Their erudition is amazing, and it is presented in a manner that lures one on-and-on, as well as inducing the pleasant belief that one is learning something really worthwhile. It is a big thing to have attempted, and as far as I have gone there is certainly nothing to cavil at." "The book is gorgeous in its epigram and cold satire. It is one of the most brilliant books of sophisticated World-wisdom ever written. It sums up the case of intelligence against life. Isaac Laquedem is the Ulysses of your brain." "`My First Two Thousand Years' looks to me like a big thing." "Instead of leaving the reader stimulated, this would-be entertaining and philosophic tome leaves you prostrated...quality-of-life, so difficult to define to any healthy piece of literature, is absent." "The story captures the reader's interest in the beginning, holding it enthralled through every short chapter to the very end of five hundred and one pages. This number is significant. It recalls those gentle tales of one thousand and one nights." "The halfpenny cynicism in which the authors revel is the type resulting from protracted adolescence. The greatest mystery of it all is that the authors if not their book comes recommended, however guardedly, by no less than Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw, and Havelock Ellis." "`My First Two Thousand Years' has occasional defects, but, out-weighing these, are pages of beauty, clearly seen and transcribed; and chapters of adroit and smiling satire...throughout there persists the restless reach of man toward a forever elusive finality." "This is in may respects and astonishing book, and in all respects one that deserves attention." "Cartaphilus's speculations and comprehensions about life, as without growing older, watching others grow old and idle; his amatory experiences, his judgments of great men of history, his increasing self-knoledge...all these give the book substance and intellectual stimulation, as well as very occasional brilliance. But in no major sense does the book triumph over its inherent difficulties. It is not history surveyed from high philosophical peaks, but history regarded by two intelligent minds. It is all human experience collected and annotated, but not interpreted with any profundity. So is its irony without depth, and its wit without freshness." You would think that anyone might, in two thousand years, grow weary of tryingto solve the riddle of life through sexual orgies, especially if, along about the middle of the fourth century of it, a Chinese adept has taught him two hundred and eighty secrets of love. But not Cartaphilus...undeniably an eenormous achievement." "...a work that must not be measured by ordinary standards....It will be read and thoroughly enjoyed by any lover of good fiction no less than by him who has a preferment for history and biography." "...As a work of creative imagination, Viereck and Eldridge have written a fascinatingly unique and alluring story. It is done with a spareness of words that sometimes approaches the beauty of the Greeks....In summing up the book...it is the story you remember." "...an unusually good story...some readers will detect a slight suspicion of Kraft-Ebbing; our respectable ancestors would have burned the book -- and perhaps the authors -- with a clear conscience. But a good many moderns will read it with enthusiasm." "...too colossal, too powerful, too broad in scope to be tarnished by the tired adjectives of reviewers....No detail is left untold; no intimacy is too delicate to go unrelated....A great work."

George Sylvester Viereck (1884-1962) was a German-born poet and novelist. Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) was a poet and authored a number of plays and essays. In My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography Of The Wandering Jew, Viereck and Eldridge collaborated to write an impressive, 512 page novel that purports to be the story personal story of Cartaphilius (alias Isaac Laquedem), a young man who was the "wandering jew" of ancient myth. An elegant and immortal young man, his "autobiography" provides us with portraits of Salome, Jesus, Mary Magdalen, Nero, Attila, Mohammed, Don Juan, Leonardo da Vinci, Pope Alexander, Rothschild, Spinoza, Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Lenin, Mussolini, and other historical figures. All intertwined with fascinating social commentaries, philosophic observations, as well as history and science based episodes with a new perspective through which we can view them. My First Two Thousand Years is an original and enduring work of literary substance that a whole new generation of readers can now discover with enthusiasm and appreciation.

Viereck, later a propagandist in the Nazi Regime, corresponded with Albert Einstein, incorporating the nature of relativity to the story of mankind, using the extra-scriptural legendary characters, the Wandering Jew (Isaac Lakedam) searching the earth for his female counterpart, the Wandering Jewess (Salome) who is similarly cursed to dance forever, for having asked for the head of John the Baptist to be served upon a silver platter. The specific expression of their version as a novel makes for enlightening and fascinating reading on the nature of historical events through the past two milleniums. Please enjoy watching the movie!

Hemphill's hilarious Long Gone was made into a movie, but Nobody's Hero is better. A former award-winning sports writer and a southerner, Hemphill's description of the relationship that develops between a down-and-out ex-jock from AL and a young African American athlete is beyond believable. You KNOW these guys and pull for them. And, their story is seasoned by the insertion of two salty female characters who are completely captivating. The reader can't help wondering what happens to these characters next so, Paul, how 'bout a sequel?

Paul Hemphill's works are marked by carefully drawn characters of complexity and sublety as befits a great writer who has delt so effectively in stories with a Southern context. His Birmingham upbringing, his Auburn U. 'education" and his Atlanta experience provide the football background and the racial context for a story of recovery and redemption in the modern South.

You don't have to be a football fan to appreciate this beautifully-written story of a man who finds out he's a lot better than he -- or anybody else -- thinks he is. It's a novel of redemption, and it's full of flesh-and-blood characters who grow and change -- people you find yourself caring about.
If you are a football fan, you'll appreciate "Nobody's Hero" all the more. It captures the grit and the glory of high school athletics, the kids who play and the adults who guide them. And it's a great read.

Paul Bowles can really write some lovely literature. The setting of his novels, Morocco circa 1950, simply comes alive. Thankfully in 'The Sheltering Sky' his writing ability is put to good use in a very moving story. Unfortunately in 'Let It Come Down' the author falls short, and doesn't attempt to express the human emotions found in 'The Sheltering Sky'. Having said this, most aspiring authors would kill to write anything as good as 'Let It Come Down'.

In 'Let It Come Down' we have a disillusioned young American escaping to Morocco and getting himself into all sorts of mischief. The characters he meets are bizarre yet most fascinating. It takes some 200+ pages, or two-thirds of the book, before the story takes any sort of direction. 'Let It Come Down' is touted as a thriller, and so you have some idea of what the last third of the book is about. If it wasn't for the author's ability to write fine prose with brilliant characterizations this book would be a dud. But instead it is a worthy read.

Bottom line: hardly the best from Paul Bowles, which means it is simply quite decent instead of excellent.

-Another great book by Bowles. Not as interesting to me from a historical perspective as "The Spider's House," but in some ways a deeper penetration into the human soul. Deserves even more attention than it gets (and maybe even more than 'Sheltering Sky').

When people ask me for my favorite Bowles novel, I say "Let It Come Down." Truthfully speaking, I've never been asked. "The Sheltering Sky" is moving and exploratory. But I think "Down" is its equal. I couldn't really say whether it's my favorite because it's better, or if by saying so I merely advertise that I am one of the cognoscenti.

(But am I the only one nonplussed by the ending, unlike with "Sky" or "The Spider's House"?)

It was said of Paul that he wrote some things difficult to understand which some "twisted" to their own distruction. Well, I wouldn't say Mark Nanos twisted anything, but it sure was a difficult book for me to read. Mark did an excellent job of documenting his research and supporting his conclusions which I thoroughly enjoyed when I finally figured them out. Furthermore, I think his controversial positions deserve serious consideration & adjustment in the thinking of many , if not most, conservative Christians & evangelicals. My only suggestion is to shorten the sentences & organize the thoughts that have been penned a bit more concisely. Again, I was awed by the research & insight but distracted & sometimes left wondering where he started in a sentence (or thought) soley because of his writing style. Sometimes less is more. Is it just me?

Paul's letter to the Romans has turned out to be one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible. His words have been interpreted in such diverse ways as to launch various religious movements and spawn new theologies that are completely contradictory to the message that Paul intended. One such example would be "Replacement Theology." Such ideas are based in part on anti-Semitism, which in turn, is based in part on a misunderstanding of Paul's words.

The author notes that Paul is not well liked. "Jews often perceive him as a traitor, or worse. Christians often consider him arrogant and manipulative, at the very least, and among scholars and those sensitive to the integrity of the Jews and Judaism his perceived disregard for and betrayal of his Jewish heritage and the Jewish people is justifiable cause for suspicion."

Mark Nanos "locates in the author of Romans a very different Paul: a thoroughly Jewish Paul, functioning entirely within the context of Judaism, giving priority to Israel..." With this mindset, "The Mystery of Romans" starts to reveal a message different from what history and Christianity has perhaps taught us.

"The Mystery of Romans" is a fascinating book based on brilliant scholarship. There are extensive footnotes throughout. One of the most rewarding chapters, Chapter Three, asks and answers the question: "Who were the 'weak' and the 'strong' in Rome?" It was this chapter alone that opened up a new understanding of Romans for me personally.

Every once in a while you come across a book that you wish every Christian would read. This is such a book. - Ronni

Finally! This is simply a great book. Contextually sound, theologically based, and historically appropriate, this book peels back the layers of Romans and breaks it down into its simplest terms. The LCD (Least Common Denominator) is the focus of this study (The Shema) and if your eyes remain focused, the contradictions simply dissolve. If every Christian was to read this book and act according to the understanding that comprises these pages we would be united and the internal strife would end (1 Cor. 1:10-13). At the same time if the Hebrew people would read this text, they might not have the animosity they do toward Christianity, provided we live up to our end of the bargain. If you read this book and don't come away with appreciating the Hebraic roots of Christianity and a thirst for more, then your heart is hard. I don't give many 5 star ratings!

In his Foreword to this reference book, Donald Rumbelow states that "contrary to popular belief, the pre-occupation with the Ripper is not anti-feminist".

Oh, thank you for the sour persimmons, Donald Rumbelow. Now all can revel in the mystery of Jack the Ripper with clear consciences and without having to worry about being affiliated with those horrible (chooey!) anti-feminists.

And your clarification was necessary because, as everyone knows, when we are not blowing up abortion clinics, anti-feminists are indeed in the habit of committing serial murders of women and ritualistically using their blood to brew our sacred malt liquor.
Sheesh!

And Rumbelow also states that he has no doubt that the mystery will eventually be solved. He wrote that in 1991 before the Maybrick Diary was publicized, but some of us think that the Maybrick Diary contains the solution to the mystery, and yet the debate rages on.

What would have to happen in order for the mystery to be solved to the satisfaction of MOST, let alone EVERYONE? In the wake of the Maybrick storm, Rumbelow's prediction seems naïve today.

But notwithstanding the Forward, this is a very good reference work, usable for both novice and expert, for which the editors, Paul Begg, Martin Fido, and Keith Skinner deserve much credit.

They appear to have overlooked no detail of information or speculation or tradition associated with Jack the Ripper. When one sees an entire entry devoted to "Smith, H - Undertaker of Hanbury Street, who supplied hearse for Annie Chapman", one must acknowledge that the editors truly appear to have left no stone unturned.

Maybe they went a little too far. Does it advance the study of the Ripper mystery to list every fanciful movie or TV show based on that theme, including the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold"?

The authors are modest enough about what they have done and do not vouch for 100% accuracy, but as corrections are brought to their attention, they appear to be dutifully acknowledged and included in each new edition of this book.

Where there are disputes, the authors usually present all sides well and demonstrate impartiality in their analysis. Usually. I especially appreciate their presentation of the dispute over the "Lusk kidney" (genuine kidney removed from Ripper victim, Catherine Eddowes, or medical student hoax?)

But what's this - "(O)n the basis of handwriting analysis, there currently seems little doubt that Maybrick did not write the Journal"? Uh - no. Even the most stalwart Maybrickian might have to admit that the handwriting in the diary is a problem, but that remark from "A to Z" unacceptably crosses the boundary between impartial analysis and opinion.

And what of the famous "Dear Boss" letters written to the Central News Agency, which were signed "Jack the Ripper", from which the East End murderer acquired his legendary nickname? If the letters were contemporary hoaxes and weren't written by the murderer, it isn't really accurate to refer to the murderer as "Jack the Ripper".

When the editors solemnly intone (correctly) that "most researchers" have concluded that the letters were indeed hoaxes, I am inclined to believe that they are slyly using the weight of majority opinion to browbeat the reader into agreeing.

Begg and Fido are certainly part of the "growing consensus" on this issue - do they ever advertise a willingness to go AGAINST the consensus?

And yet, among other things, the "Dear Boss" letters were taken seriously at the time by the police and were written by someone who appears to display the extreme cocksureness of the serial killer. They were written by someone who seems to know that human blood thickens quickly and can't be saved for later use as ink. And they were written by someone who seems POSITIVE that more murders are yet to come. Moreover, they are written in the same hand as that which wrote a threatening letter to a police witness who might have seen the murderer - hardly the work of a hoaxing publicity hound.

So why the consensus AGAINST the authenticity of these letters? Could it be that most Ripperologists have their own favorite suspects, who were unable or unlikely to have written the "Dear Boss" letters, and that these Ripperologists merely alter their view of the letters to conform to their own pre-drawn conclusions?

Begg and Fido wrote about the Ripper before publishing this reference work. Each of them named a different poverty-stricken lunatic semi-literate Polish Jew as the most likely Ripper candidate. Neither of their candidates could have written in the good copperplate hand that wrote the "Dear Boss" letters. Are Begg and Fido expediently allowing their objectivity to be clouded by taking false reassurance from the opinion of "most researchers"?

Ripperologists are confident about issues such as this because of consensuses that they learn about by reading the works of Ripperologists. Did the police operate this way? No wonder Jack was never caught in his lifetime.

In their published commentary about Jack the Ripper, Begg, Fido, and Skinner have proven themselves to be of impartial disposition and advocates of fair treatment for all points of view. They have shown themselves to be friends of the truth, whatever that truth may prove to be. But I am reminded of a book on realpolitik that I once read, in which it was observed that a friend is someone that you can trust 80% of the time.

With that in mind, a rating of four stars out of a possible five seems quite appropriate.

I found this book extremely well researched, well done begg,fido and skinner. I have been interested in the jack the ripper mystery for some years now,and this book was the first to introduce me to such little known suspects as william h piggot.He was arrested in a public house not far from whitechapel after causing a disturbance, and was found to have a torn bloodstained shirt in his possession plus a severe bite mark on his hand(the day after a ripper murder).Then there was edward mckenna, arrested for suppossedly threatening people with a knife.When he was taken to the police station for questioning and told to empty his pockets, they contained amongst other things several metal and cardboard boxes!(the ripperologists out there will know) that a month after mckenna was arrested,Mr lusk recieved a human kidney delivered by post in a (cardboard box). These little gems of knowledge have been brought to life in this alphabettically arranged guide of who's who ,from the bobby on the street to the head of police investigations.A breath of fresh air, much better than the usual claptrap about the prince of wales etc.

I had to write a research paper on the Ripper murders, and I found this book invaluable. Grab it as soon as possible. I reccommend it 100%

Although MALDOROR's most immediate pleasure is its naked nastiness - rape, murder, torture, paedophilia, bestiality, blasphemy etc. - the truly unsettling nature of the book is its textual instability, the violence of its language, the horrible, concrete, surgical beauty of its images, the haunting effect of its descriptions, its foregrounding and destabilising of slowly compelling narrative, its clashing of tones, moods, viewpoints, narrators, targets, sympathies. French literature produces a lot of books like this, wherein a madman shouts the reader out of his complacency (e.g. Rimbaud, Corbiere, the Gide of FRUITS OF THE EARTH). This is better than most because its disgust is funny and a thrill. After book three, though, it all becomes a little wearing and monotonous, as Lautreamont's assault is more tediously preoccupied with language. The same fault can be levelled at the underrated, protean, difficult POEMS, where intellectual engagement wins out over sensual overspill. Book Six of MALDOROR, though, is a masterpiece of narrative subversion, simultaneously asserting the power of stories and running riot through their conventions, looking forward to, amongst others, Borges and Nabokov. Knight's introduction is rewarding, if a little dated, but the translation is one of the best I've ever read, capturing Maldoror's rhythmic logorrhea to horrible perfection.

I must say I do prefer the Lykiard translation to this one. Check it out.

If reading a normal horror novel (a term which I really dislike) is like watching a car crash, this evil, sick, tasteless and brilliant book is like being in one. Sensitive types should be warned that it contains lashings of blasphemy, weird sex (including, in one eye-popping instance, sex with a shark), bloody murder and rape, and all manner of thoroughly awful things. At which point I suspect you've all fallen asleep. Don't. What separates this from the supposed 'shock' lit of, say, Irvine Welsh, is a delirious sense of invention. More in tune with Michael Moore or Chris Morris than Howard Stern, each revolted gasp from the reader is carefully placed and planned to provoke a deep-seated feeling of terror. What always needles me is the way that the book's Satanic protagonist Maldoror often switches places with the narrator. It's a full-frontal assault on the reader's security. And why do we read it? Because it makes every other supposedly shocking novel seem tame, unadventurous and laboured. Even American Psycho. Especially American Psycho. Rather than a plot, Lautreamont has chosen a selection of essays and incidents to show Maldoror's evil. His concern over whether or not to kill a child is one of the many freakish and distressing incidents ("...lest your body burst like an over-ripe fruit"), but it is all shot through with black humour and a surprisingly moral indignation. In fact, Lautreamont offered to 'tone it down' for its first publication. Thank God he didn't. "You have no idea how hard it is", as Maldoror would say.

This book is a NOVEL and presents one possible view of what Edward de Vere's life might have been like as the author of the Shakespearean plays. Although the story is written from the Oxfordian viewpoint, the book makes no attempt to present the Oxfordian case or to refute any other authorship theory. It is just a story of how it might have been - fact mixed together with supposition. Since a little fact and a lot of supposition is all any Shakespeare biographer has to work with, this book reads a lot like some poorly documented Shakespeare biographies - but remember that this author does NOT claim to have written a biography.

I think that Altrocchi created a pretty interesting story. Occasionally the writing is a bit stiff, but overall it is quite imaginitive and believable (if the reader can meet Altrocchi part way and suspend disbelief). The author's own 20th-21st century attitudes definitely infiltrate the story at points, but in other cases he presents ways of looking at events that my "modern" viewpoint would never have thought of. The story flows rapidly and is a quick read. It did leave me wondering what really happened, but we do not know and may never know. Altrocchi leads the reader to imagine.

Being a fan of the biographical novel since Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstacy (Michelangelo) and Lust for Life (Van Gogh), I read this book with marked anticipation and enjoyed it. But as to its veracity there is some question. A far superior book on the Shakespeare-de Vere issue is Charlton Ogburn's The Mysterious William Shakespeare. Several of the points made in that book are echoed in this one--de Vere's affair with Elizabeth and their conception of a child who was to become the Earl of Southampton, to name one--but some are not. For instance, Ogburn suggests that the questioned paternity of de Vere's first daughter with Anne Cecil was the result of a deception on her part (probably at the behest of her conniving father)--Anne snuck into Edward's bed when he was expecting someone else, a motif that appears in All's Well That Ends Well. Altrocchi makes no mention of this. A closer connection to the plays themselves would have thus helped this book. But it is a good read and does reveal some interesting insights into the relationship between de Vere, Elizabeth and Burghley. My only complaint is that much of the dialogue seems contrived and artificial. But what can one expect from a medical doctor? Also, this book is missing documentation for the quotes from printed sources, so it is impossible to tell what is actual and what is imagined, unless one assumes that all italicized portions are actual quotes, which is not stated. I expected a more scholarly treatment. Moreover, I suspect Sonnet 146--"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth / . . . . / And Death once dead, there's no more dying then"--was the last thing Shakespeare wrote, not Hamlet's dying speech. Finally, an epilogue explaining the posthumous printing of the plays, like the 1604 quarto of Hamlet and the 1623 folio, would have added a nice touch.

Wonderful book, Greatly done, didn't want it to end, so informative
and interesting, loved it.