Paul LaViolette has painted a sensitive portrait of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The discriptive scenes, written in short vinettes, have the reader looking through LaViolette's eyes at the flora, birds, and marine life that dwell in this unique area of the United States. His scientific background as an oceanographer certainly added to my personal understanding of the coastline and waters of the Gulf Coast. However, it is written with such a personal touch that I feel like a visitor to LaViolette's home.

"Vikings: Fear and Faith" is an often eloquent history book in the hard-to-put-down page-turner category.

The Viking invasions of England extended over more than 200 years, provoking generations of despair and fear among the English people. The fragility of their Christian civilization and culture was exposed as it repeatedly hung by a thread in the face of great brutality. This inspired agonized examinations of why God would allow such things to be done to his people.

Yet with a dogged and determined faith, the end result was the uniting of England and the conversion of the Viking conquerors to Christianity, along with all of Scandinavia. Barely remembered acts of courage and faith (and no few unremembered ones) made England (thus the world) what it is.

How a savage and materialistic people such as the Vikings came to be monks, missionaries and church builders when exposed to the Christians they conquered is the subject of this book.

The volume differs from others (or at least the 2 I have read) on the Viking period in that it focuses on how the two peoples understood the world. It is this understanding that shapes historical events. Thus, one learns more about those years in the first 30 pages of this book than in all of Gwyn Jones classic "A History of the Vikings".

For example, where Jones might describe Viking family histories with "... the superstructure is often shaped by arbitrary assumptions on the nature of history itself" (very illuminating, no?), Cavill instead focuses on the role of ideas: how people understood what was happening to them and their nation in a context defined by their Christian faith.

Perhaps the majority of modern historians, being secular, lack the inclinationto pursue this line of study, or more probably the discernment to see it as important, but faith appears in sermons of the time, the lives of saints, in seemingly secular accounts of battles, in the prose of chronicles and in other sources shaped by a Christianity deeply shocked by the Viking violation. Virtually every expression from that time revolves around fear of the Vikings and its intersection with Christian faith. To instead focus on descriptions of grave contents or speculate about variations in layout of Viking villages is to drain history of what's important.

Thus, I was excited to read this volume by about page 4 of the introduction, as I think others will be, in that it illuminates what happened to the Vikings. It seems to me such knowledge is relevant to the present.

Let the lament of monks evacuating to Ireland as the world crumbled around them, only to have their hand-made gospel book washed overboard in a raging storm, speak across the centuries:

'What shall we do?', they said. 'Where shall we go carrying the relics of the father? For seven years we have travelled across the entire province fleeing from the barbarians, and there is no place of refuge left in the entire country ... In addition to all this we are weighed down by a cruel hunger which forces us to seek relief for our lives, but the sword of the Danes ravaging everywhere will not allow us to travel with this treasure. But if we abandon it, and look after ourselves, what shall we answer Cuthbert's people when they afterward ask us where their pastor and patron is?'

"Vikings: Fear and Faith" looks at a large number of literary sources, recognizing even possible exagerrations (ship counts, etc.) can provide information as to what people were thinking. It considers King Alfred and King Canut as well as other people and institutions. The book has 100 pages of appendices containing original texts translated by the author:

1. The Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum
2. The Battle of Brunanburh
3. The Charter of St. Frideswide's Monastery, Oxford
4. The Loss and Recovery of the Lindisfarne Gospels
5. Archbishop Wulfstan's Address to the English
6. A Letter from Boniface and the Anglo-Saxin Mission in Germany to King Aethelbald of Mercia
7. Swedish Rune-Stones
8. King Alfred's Dedicatory Letter to his Translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care
9. Cynewuld and Cyneheard
10. The Voyage of Ohthere
11. The Voyage of Wulfstan
12. The Battle of Maldon
13. Wyrdwriteras
14. Aethelwold Ousts the Clerics from the Old Minster
15. The Blacksmith's
16. Bede's Concerns About False Monasteries
17. The Old English Beatitudes
18. A Prayer of Confession
19. The Martyrdom of Aelfheah
20. Aelfric's Life of St. Oswald
21. The Martrydom of King Edmund
22. Selections from Abbo's Account of St. Edmund
23. Roger of Wendover's Version of the St. Edmund Legend
24. Lines from the Dream of the Rood

It has taken quite some time before Alfons de Ridder (better known as Willem Elsschot) got his due recognition as a major author even among his own people, the Flemish, and their northern brothers, the Dutch (who share a common language the same way the British and Americans do).
I consider him to be the most important Dutch language author of the 20th century. Quite a few Dutch and Flemish people share this opinion. Even though his work is little known outside the Dutch language area, Elsschot should really be considered as one of the great figures in world literature, on a par with internationally well known authors as Dickens, Victor Hugo, Chekhov or Cervantes. He did not write any long novels, only short stories. His complete works can be gathered in one 800 page volume. But the quality of these little gems....
As almost all of Elsschot's works, Villa des Roses is based on his personal experiences. It describes the life in a Paris boarding house around 1910. Especially touching is the description of the unfortunate love affair between the servant girl Louise and a young German boarding guest. But there are a lot of other interesting plots and characters in this short story of about 100 pages. Elsschot is a master of observation and phlegmatic, economical description. His simple style is extremely powerful.

At last country music fans have their own cover art book. More than 250 are shown, in color, either one or four to a page in this almost LP size book. Fortunately none of them are angled or overlapping each othe. As the covers are arranged chronologically you can see how the big names and some one-hit wonders, were graphically presented by their record companies. Johnny Cash has ten covers from 1956 to 1985, Dolly Parton six from 1967 to 1987, Waylon Jennings six from 1966 to 1985.

Most of the covers before the Seventies follow the usual album design format, bland photo of the artist and some dull colored typography, though there are some exceptions, for instance Porter Wagoner's 'Confessions of a Broken Man' or 'Skid Row Joe'. It is not until the Seventies before the whole package was considered as one design element, like the Kinky Friedman's 'Lasso From El Passo' (made to look like a Camel cigarette pack) or Dolly Parton's '9 to 5 and Odd Jobs'. The covers shown from the Eighties mostly have well taken expressive photography combined with interesting graphics.

Country fans will enjoy seeing these historical covers, if only to see the ones they owned and possibly regret throwing out years ago. On page sixteen I came across a Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant album, '2 Guitars Country Style', I had in the late Fifties and then junked years later but fortunately re-issued on CD. 'Vinyl Hayride' is the same large size as an expanding collection of books devoted to LP cover art and graphic designers will find it worth adding to their reference library.

....although, nothing could have predicted the tragedy of Sept 11, and the ensuing military action against Afghanistan, there are plenty of theorists who have predicted that momentous changes will come about because of our computer age. Many of these philosophers, scientists and artists come from the French theorist group that have included folks like Jean Baudrillard, Foucoult, Camus and the like, who some like to call postmodernists, other like to call deconstructionists and still others may call death mongers. Another of the greats from this group is Paul Virilio whose work should be taken a closer look by all of us...

He is a multi hyphenated type. An architect-artist-theorist-writer-dromologist. He is somewhat of an mentor to the big time Cybertheorists John Armitage and Arthur and Marilouise Kroker. He was born in Nantes France where he witnessed the Blitzkrieg by Hitler's army and other WW II bombings. This has a lot to do with the forming of a lot of his thoughts. And for you here, I have a few salient points gleaned from his thoughts.

#Virtuality will end reality.

#Television is the medium (museum) of accidents. One exposes an accident on television in order not to be exposed to an accident, in order not to be exposed to an accident...

#Research in cyberspace is essentially a search for God and the unity of God.

#Wars are becoming more like Cyberwars and/or video game wars. Look at the Gulf War and the war in Bosnia.

#Technology will separate the mind from the body.

And there are thousands and thousands of insights Virilio has that are more than thought-provoking, to say the least. We should
take the time to read his work. He has said things that maybe will help us avert further disasters...

In Vision: The Search For A Spiritual Pathway, Paul Skinner draws upon his experience a professor of Family and Community Medicine in the University of Arizona's College of Medicine, Tucson, Arizona and his many years conducting national and international workshops on lifestyle issues, spirituality, healing and health to present a very "reader friendly" book about empowerment that provides specific methods, insights and suggestion for successfully mastering the ability to heal oneself of the emotional traumas and injuries that life inflicts upon the human experience. Vision: The Search For A Spiritual Pathway is an immensely valued, real-world practical, highly effective, and much appreciated contribution to the growing library of deeply intuitive, spirituality oriented, self-help, self-improvement literature.

This books just provide you with everything you want to know about VB5.0. It is so useful!

This book was a eye opening experience that allows you to appreciate something most of us take for granted -- SIGHT. It encourages you to look beyond the physicality of sight and to become acutely aware of the images you see from day-to-day.

Dr. Lester has performed a service for myself and anyone else who reads this book. It drives you to absorb more of the world that we "see" everyday.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in graphical design, imagery, or to those who want a deeped appreciation for the power that images play in our lives!

A truly quantum novel, with multidimensional plots that weave through millennia of history, incarnations and timelines. "The Voice" is powerfully compelling for its insights about our own era and the end of the Western Dream.

This is a mini portfolio of images from a show of the same name. There is a booklet as well as several individual reproductions. Mr. Caponigro's intent is to describe how printing technique and content combine to evoke an emotional response in the viewer.

Magic.