Reframing Paul in my opinion is a good book - not a 'nice' or 'comfortable' book, but one worth reading, especially if you aspire to having a "Berean" spirit -which implies a willingness to have your ideas about the New Testament (NT) and church challenged. But there is also comfort in this book - it gave shape to my increasing unease (over the last ~ 15 years) about the gap between what the NT seems to say - and what we do, and assert as 'biblical'. I no longer feel quite as alone.

But the book is not easy going in some places (unless you are skilled in reading Graeco-Roman philosophy/history). Someone suggested to me this reading plan: " Read chap 1, then 18, then skip 2-3 (or even 2-5), read the rest (feel free to skip around) and come back to the early ones last. They are important context setting, but a bit tough".

But where to from here? The book does not offer easy solutions. (As a former Australian Prime Minister said: "Life wasn't meant to be easy" ;-) By the way, I admired the author's transparency/willingness to be vulnerable. I think that adds to the book. A book read by humans - a book written by a human.

Mark Strom has written a critique of much current evangelical practice. He outlines the world Paul operated in, a world where elitism and abstraction ruled, he then shows how the apostle Paul challenged this world. His critique is that, ironically, much contemporary evangelical practice more closely resembles the world Paul was challenging than Paul himself. A challenge worth sitting up and listening to.

A daring book has appeared at a precipitous moment in history. Mark Strom's Reframing Paul rushes to the rescue of modern churches hopelessly lost in a postmodern world. With rare exception, that's every church! We are still trying to see that the baggage dragging us down is our own culture-a culture more dependent on the classical tradition than on the Judeo-Christian. Whenever religion gets too close to culture, tragic ignorance prevails. With breathtaking clarity, Mark Strom reveals this cultural blindness to Paul's true message. Reframing Paul is a beacon of hope for the future.

I really enjoy reading the book because of my long affair with the Greek language and culture in it's different historical incarnations. Anyone interested in traditional life, travel, or history should find this book captivating. When I'm next in Greece I want to visit Crete, and this book was the inspiration. The hard sci-fi part is quite good as well, creative and well-researched. It has a little something for everybody.

Troubled Anne-Marie Brand has a secret that she has held inside of herself for her entire adolescent and adult life. Now this secret may be the leverage she needs to get her son out of the legal grasp of her vindictive ex-husband. She needs only to acquire a bit of archaeological treasure to set her trap and quantum physicist Manolis Minakis seems to hold the key to the very treasure trove she seeks.
There is one unknown that challenges her scheme: it seems that Manolis himself has masterminded the entire game from the very start. He has lured Anne-Marie's new husband to a symposium on quantum physics, manupulated the man whom Anne-Marie desperately needs to aid her in her quest for her son and enticed Anne-Marie herself to his homeland on Crete where he enfolds his own strange personal history.
The outcome is a pleasing story of two people of different generations with the identical need to salvage the good from their past in order to face the future in a positive manner.
I enjoyed this story immensely---I did not buy it because it was supposedly a Sci-Fi tale; it has little science fiction. Rather I found the characterizations and descriptions of Greek village life vivid and fulfilling, especially when set against the foil of such archaeological greats like Sir Arthur Evans and John Pendlebury.
A most satisfying story!

Preuss does an excelent job developing characters, and bringing us in to the lives and history of the people of isolated island of Crete.

When I started the book, I was expecting more physics. I was not prepared for the 100 page biography of Minakis, and did not enjoy the interlude as much as I would have if I was expecting it.

The writing style was fantastic. I loved the characters. This book about the lives of scientists. It is a welcome relief to all the quirky sci-fi books filling the bookstore shelves. A previous reviwer made a good point labelling "Secret Passages" as fiction about science instead of science fiction.

The characters and writing style are fantastic. Preuss does an excellent job weaving together anthropology, the history of Crete, philosphy and physics. On the downside, many of the transitions in the book were weak and the plot a little disjoint. This was truly a refreshing book, but I gave the book a 4 instead of a 5.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a very deep and thoughtful work on the lives of scientists. I admit, I wish I had a map of Crete at hand while reading it. I expect it would be better on the second read.

Sorry, just couldn't get into the flo of the book. The price for what the writer offers was a tad much! The characters are boring, the plot is boring and, sorry to say, but do yourself a favor and pass on this one! Maybe the writer's next book will be better! I, for one, can only hope!

It's interesting to note how Escu uses Romania as the background for his attempt at mythology. He seems to lay down vital points and then build whole scenarios out of relatively unknown places. Therefore, his work seems to be aiming at opening the minds of the democratic West.

The plot is engaging but leaves a bitter taste for the reader to swallow. All characters are equal and I found it difficult to distinguish between an evil character and a good character - they're just characters. The language is musical and used to create moods and shocks. By the end, one is supposed to look between the lines, in the spaces, to find the true meaning of the work, and this is highly ambitious.

Compared to the rest, Tarnish rises and sinks unlike anything before it.

My knowledge of the genre may not be impressive, but I'm fairly certain that Paul Escu's 'Tarnish: Bridge Over Clouds' is not fantasy as we know it.

I can tell you now that there are none of the goblins, ghouls and gremlins which seem to litter most fantasy novels. That dishevelled old wizard with the staff that doubles as a handy door-stop seems to have taken a well earned holiday in the Algarve. In fact, Escu seems to have dispensed with almost all the precepts for a standard fantasy novel, leaving us with something which, in my opinion at least, is a hell of a lot better.

The story (or stories) of Ogatu, Betrus, Manueric and Pavel are profoundly psychological. Escu takes us progressively further into the minds of each as the book develops, and I warn you in advance, these are not places for the faint hearted. In fact, the very world of the novel, Nimoroa, is hardly somewhere to take the family for a long weekend: The opening scenes are savage, brutal pictures of life, and, if anything, the tone of later passages darkens still.

Indeed by the end of Tarnish, Escu's prose has exploded into a mad stream of imagery and foul language, the realisation of the journey of discovery he and his characters had embarked on. It is an unsettling conclusion, certainly, but an unquestionably powerful one all the same.

Perhaps by the time Escu comes to writing a follow-up, the little wizard, complete with multi-purpose staff, will be back? Who knows? In the meantime, buy this novel, whether you enjoy fantasy or not, as it's more than just your average fantasy novel: it's a journey into the dark, gruesome underworld of the subconscious.

As a resident of Bali year-round, the number one complaint by almost every lonely planet carrying visitor is how inaccurate and outdated the lonely planet guides are. Whether it is Thailand or Indonesia, information that is needed on a daily basis is history by the time the lonely books reach the traveling consumer. Bookstores throughout Asia are piled high with lonely planets discarded by weary travelers eager to lessen their load. Lonely planet books do offer historical perspectives that can also be found on the internet, but the insider's information the first time traveler needs to save money and sanity their first days in Asia is sorely lacking. Updated info on how to avoid being ripped off from lodging to transportation to moneychanging is of primary concern to almost all visitors to Bali that we meet. Books as heavy as bricks with pretty pics are nice but hardly handy when you are in need of fast, accurate information. Try "The Beginners Guide to Bali" on cd-rom- it has weekly updated info and prepares the first time traveler to Bali for the unexpected.

I found this book quite informative and useful in its information about many different aspects of visiting Bali. The book provides wonderful cultural insights, historical background and detailed information.

The only major discrepancy we came across, for instance, was that the book said that Kuta has problems with tourists being hassled by street vendors, but when we went in April, we found that the main street in Kuta (where the Matahari Department Store is) quite the opposite. It turned out that the officials had just recently come down on the street vendors and put a stop to harassing tourists there. Instead, when we went to the center of town in Ubud, we were hassled a great deal by taxi/moped drivers to get us to hire them; this caught us off guard.

In response to concerns that the book isn't current on it's information, I feel that you shouldn't rely on a guidebook for prices, and that as a whole Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok gives the information that you need to know. It tells you in great detail about what there is to see and do, and where things are and how things work. I mean afterall, by the time any book reaches publication, isn't a lot of the information out-of-date? Otherwise, a book would never get published; it would be a newsletter.

I gave this a rating of 4 stars only because when we went to Bali, we didn't travel enough of the country (and we didn't get to Lombok) to give the book 5 stars.

We have just returned from Bali (October 2000) and strongly recommend taking this LP with you. I have been a bit skeptical about the info of some LP's (Mexico-we hardly used it!) but in Bali whoever put this one together knew their stuff. FORGET THE PRICES MENTIONED, they've at least doubled for meals accomodation etc , but then so has the amount of rupee you'll get!! One interesting note. We took a taxi to the Temple of Gudang Kawi, an 11th century temple. LP justifibly raves about it. The only other tourists there we saw were holding a LP. Local tour operaters didn't seem to think tourists would be interested in it and must take them to more boring temples!(and believe you me, they get boring!)

This book is a triumph in expository discourse, but obviously written exclusively for certain audiences - like published novelists, literarians, MFA aspirants, etc.

Like a magician, scholar and teacher Paul West waves a gem-studded literary wand across page after page, engendering his unusual passion for literature and composition in a language that is pithy, pedantic, and even poetic - the tone modulates from hyper-serious to downright funny at times.

As Paul himself mentions in the book, contrast is an important criterion for developing not only fiction, but any writing endeavor - and he doesn't fall short of this in this book at all. At certain points, it seems that almost anything, even people and their appearances and anecdotes far-wide of the penumbra of academia, can stimulate West to write with eloquent candor. And then out-of-the-blue, a dramatic cadence occurs, as if in a Beethoven symphony, and he pivots and directs his observations more toward the formulaic process of writing itself and the nature of human concept formation. Besides West's plummage of talent which shows splendid on every page, diametric contrast is what kept me going when reading this book - cool shifts in mental and social paradigms of the seminar setting that are set up at the beginning of the book. The only misgivings I have with the book are its pervasive obscurities in references of philosophies and authors, and this is harsher, West's few-and-far-between interludes of self-aggrandizing drivel. I consider that this book is a work of art, so therefore I can say that given that the world of sight is unlimited, West's vision is limited by the cramped dimentions of his own ego because he's an artist - this is fine though, because every author and artist for that matter, to an extent, operates under these pretenses. Only slightly does it subtract from its intrinsic worth, which in my opinion is very high.

Overall, it's an excellent effort and worthy of a very close reading.

In the July 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly readers were treated to the pinheaded literary musings of one B. R. Myers in an article titled "A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness of American Literary Prose." More recently, we have witnessed the literary dust-up between Jonathan Franzen, a serious writer who has written a profoundly serious novel-"The Corrections"-and the Popular Television High Priestess of Literature, none other than Oprah Winfrey herself. That dust-up has, of course, spilled over into some of the Amazon reviews of Franzen's book, most notably by those who bought the Oprah label only to find out that the "The Corrections" is actually literature, contains Big Words and Big Thoughts, and even requires, for the uninitiated or the unknowing, a prop so dramatic as a dictionary. Oprah has, of course, done the literary world a favor (and Franzen has as much as acknowledged this in his comments on the ambivalence of being an "Oprah Selection") because her endorsement has been an accelerant for the best-selling success of a literary novel-a highly unusual occurrence in American popular culture.

With the foregoing preamble in mind (and without intending to denigrate the virtues of good old-fashioned storytelling, simple language and straight-forward linear narrative), Paul West's "Master Class" is a refreshing anodyne to the popular tendency towards literary debasement. West is the serious and prolific author of more than twenty works of fiction and more than a half-dozen works of non-fiction, all of them marked by linguistic pyrotechnics and a willingness to expand and experiment with language in ways that make literature more than just storytelling.

"Master Class" relates West's last graduate seminar in fiction writing. The book contains a short appendix of "Dramatis Personae" providing brief biographies of each of the students in the class and the narrative itself focuses, in each chapter, on a critical discussion of the story or novel of one of the students. To say this, however, is to simplify-and West's writing style and approach to literature is never simple. In fact, the use of this structure is really the starting point for West's streaming, fragmented and difficult commentary on writing fiction.

West's approach to literature becomes apparent early in "Master Class," when he talks about the first sentence of a story or novel. The advice is simple and pragmatic: "Never begin with a dull phrase." But what, exactly, does West mean by this? He means make the sentence difficult for the reader, invert its order, place the subject and the verb at the end. He means, in other words, do things that immediately speak of literary pretension in the minds of the simplifiers. "Skip what the words mean; they're just nonce words . . . Gather up all that is strange . . . , a fistful of novelty, and make the reader assimilate it before passing on to the noun or pronoun, thus ensuring the attractive, sensuous part of the statement gets you off to a good start that keeps its momentum all through, shutting out the rest of the world." In other words, "make the reader concentrate."

"Master Class" is a densely written, difficult and allusive exploration of approaches to writing that will reward the serious reader. It does, however, require the reader to bring to the text an expansive knowledge of literature, for West's discussions, examples and allusions are unintelligible to the uninitiated. For this reason, West will not sit well with those readers who are disinclined to the self-consciously literary, for both West's persona in this book, as well as West's views of literature, are highbrow and intellectually demanding. Here's a taste of "Master Class," a passage where West sarcastically takes issue with the American emphasis on "no-nonsense"-i.e., pragmatic, straight-forward, action-driven-fiction at the expense of cerebrally demanding literary fiction:

"Check through the schools of prose writing and find the no-nonsense criterion solidly established, the list of self-indulgent malefactors clearly posted, behaving as if they were French or Spanish. The English too have their version of this, only too readily dismissing Woolf and company as pansy writers besotted with surfaces and conversation, as Sarraute calls it. I suppose the view never dies that fiction should be matter-of-fact and straightforward because anything further demands thought, and this is something for which the high schools have trained almost nobody."

Similarly, in another passage in which West rues the contemporary literary insignificance of Sir Thomas Browne, Rabelais, Beckett, Lispector, Woolf, and Sarraute (the references themselves being a remarkable litmus indicating West's perspective), a world where MBA's preside over publishing houses and all writers are encouraged to write alike "the same corrugated cardboard prose," he writes:

"If there's a battle of the books, it was over long ago with the arrival onstage of a huge skim-reading public that cares no more about sentences than about how an ostrich wipes its rear. These are the condom readers, I suppose, to be seen at airports and on planes, racing ahead through their page-turners to a destiny as illusory as the one at the end of their 500-miles-an-hour charge."

Thus, "Master Class" draws a line in the sand of sorts, a line that puts the intellectual demands of serious writing and literature on one side and the surrender to the popular and the formulaic on the other. For those on one side, this book will be a marvel; for those on the other, an unintelligible bore.

No other book which is marketed as a guide for writers is like this book, partly because the marketing isn't exactly accurate, but mostly because there isn't another writer like Paul West.

If you're looking for the standard sort of 10-Steps to Better Writing manual (the kind which Writer's Digest Books churns out with remarkable speed), then this is not the book for you. While there is tremendously powerful advice for all writers within Master Class, you can't use the book for easy reference, and most of the suggestions offered are of the earthshakingly metaphysical sort (the kind you find in, for instance, Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet).

This book will also frustrate you if you don't particularly like to think, and don't particularly like to read anything written by someone who is smarter and better-read than you are. If you think such people are naturally pretentious, then you will find Paul West pretentious. Continue on in ignorant bliss.

But if you're willing to surrender yourself to a brilliant mind and brilliant writing, if you want to dig deep into the biggest questions any writer should think about (questions of motive and meaning, of language and history, of responsibility and truth), if you don't mind obscure references and difficult concepts, then here's your book.

In Master Class, Paul West gives his own account of one semester of a particularly brilliant fiction writing seminar. Since it's from his point of view, and since he was hired to be a teacher and mentor and expert, we get an awful lot of his opinions, stray thoughts, and tangential anecdotes. He doesn't, for the most part, sum them up, and certainly doesn't offer any easy formulas. But his thoughts are so insightful, his erudition so remarkable, and his perspective so clear and refreshing -- no woo-woo New Age mysticism, no "writing is the expression of the inner child" drivel, no simplifications or simple-mindedness -- that this book is one of the very few which live up to Kafka's dictum that a book should be an axe to cut through the frozen sea within us.

Following the introduction, each chapter is an interview with a string-theory advocate (and non-advocate: Feynman) recorded for the BBC in 1987. If Davies actually did the interviews, he plays the role of interested layman well.

But there is a limit to what you can do in words to convey mathematical ideas. A book on physics with no mathematics at all CAN work if the subject treatment is broad rather than deep, and good metaphors employed. By contrast, the focus of this book is narrow and shallow. There is no mathematics, and not too many metaphors to help us bridge the gap. Plus, on occasion, the interviewees sound pompous and patronizing. A major part of the problem seems to be that the interviews are mostly statements of personal position on the nature of strings, and personal role in their development, rather than an attempt to educate. Anyhow, I was left hungry and disappointed that I had not learned more.

I recommend the introduction (70-pages - presumably by Davies). It is a very well written and educative layman's survey of modern physics leading up to strings. The book may be worth buying just for that.

This book's suggestion (briefly mentioned) that each "force" can also be considered a "dimension" is the key to alien/UFO abductions -- aliens are using the different forces (electromagnetism, gravity etc) as routes for their travel throughout the universe. That explains how they have conquered the distance/time problems that we humans see with space travel, since we are still fundamentally functioning in the same four dimensions (length, width, depth and time) in which we have traditionally operated. Additional dimensions obviously don't have the same constraints as the original four, allowing relatively easy travel across what we would call billions of miles of space. I tried to convey this information to Wesley Strieber, author of "Communion," about alien abduction, but was unsuccessful. Alien encounters are not dreams or hallucinations. They are real, and the aliens are using Superstring theory for their travels.

BBC program consisting of interviews with well known physicists about 'superstrings'.
This book contains a very good introduction of the quantum theory and of supersymmetry/superstrings for the layman.
Most of the interviewed (John Schwarz, Edward Witten, Michael Green, David Gross, John Ellis, Abdus Salam, Steven Weinberg) agree with the theory of superstrings, mainly because it is the only theory that could solve certain mathematical problems (infinities), without violating the laws of quantum mechanics and gravity.
Two disagree (Sheldon Glashow and Richard Feynman), mainly because the existence of strings in nature can not be tested.
For the moment (see among others, 'The elegant universe' by Brian Greene) it seems that superstrings is the only way to get forward in the search for a 'theory' of everything.
Not to be missed. Congratulations to the BBC.

As an old China hand, I found this to be a very interesting, ambitious work.. It is at once a memoir, a travelogue, a reflection on Chinese journalism practices, a "foreign expert's" view of China in the years 1993-94, and an experiment in using various literary devices, including fiction, to weave what the author terms a "non-fiction novel." In addition to describing the functions of China Daily, the main English Language newspaper in the country published by the communist government, the author gives the reader a parallel glimpse of life in the United States through the publication of letters from friends. This serves to highlight the differing concerns in the two societies and to introduce a number of fascinating, if jaded, characters. Through the re-publication of selected newspaper and magazine articles, some his own, the author reflects on various economic and cultural issues, such as unemployment and religious tensions in China. There is not a great deal of literature on the subject of the media in China and I recommend this book to serious scholars. Mr. Ryan I gather is a former Fulbright scholar to Japan and an accomplished journalist.

I would have never thought a book about Cambodia would make me laugh, but this one did. Livingston tries to paint a realistic portrait of Cambodia and I think she succeeds. Refreshingly, Gecko Tails doesn't focus exclusively on the Khmer Rouge or the fantasy world of drugs and sex which is the basis for much travel literature on Southeast Asia, and yet it's not a dry or academic. Excellent.

This is an excellent read. The author has crafted a fast-paced adventure yarn that rings true to life. He gives the reader an accurate account of the tragic history of Cambodia while at the same time bringing the reader into the present day. The author has an excellent feel for the grimness of revolutionary movements yet manages to distance himself from a subjective conclusion. It is a multi-faced work that can be read on many levels. I was particularly struck by the suggestion that secret American misadventures may be continuing in Cambodia. Mr. Ryan has managed to extract a large measure of humor from what essentially is a tract on despair.

Message aside, this is not a well-written novel. There's a lot of repetition, as if the authors either don't trust the writing to be able to communicate, or they don't trust the reader to follow the story.

Also, the book is formatted oddly, with new "chapters" beginning on separate pages with nearly every new scene in the book. This makes for over 50 chapters and VERY choppy reading.

The movie is much better, and ends differently from the novel. (They shot 2 endings and picked one that's different from the one in the book.) There are photos from the film, but none of the actors are named in it at all.

Megiddo:The Omega Code II is a really good book it just like the
movie and character plot lines is writen extermley well.This book
is so good you can here Micheal York talking when you read the
part of Stone Alexender.The Novel picks up where 1999's hit
Omega Code left of.

The dramatic story line of "Megiddo" will keep readers wide awake and turning page after page. The characters are well developed and totally plausable. The use of brothers representing good and evil was well developed as was the entire action packed book. If you are looking for a captivating and fast paced read, pick up a copy of "Megiddo."
Beverly J Scott author of Righteous Revenge

I was pretty disappointed with this book, because I was expecting a thorough investigation of Paul's Pharasaism, use of rabbinic exegesis, keeping of the law, etc.

Instead, Young spends most of his time simply asserting that Paul was a Jew and remained a Torah-observant Jew his whole life. There is hardly any attempt at establishing an exegetical foundation. He does not look in any detail at Phil 3, Rom 9-11, or any of the other obviously important texts.

This is such a fertile area in scholarship right now that Young's book truly pales in comparison with the work currently being done by others, not to mention even the previous contributions of Davies and Sanders, etc.

Dr. Young has a generally interested premise. One which is important and obviously must be considered when dealing with Pauline literature - namely that Paul always, to his dying day, considered himself a Pharisee and identified his theology with that of the Pharisees.

The major downfalls are twofold. The first problem is that he doesn't have a lot of interaction with contemporary scholarship. I realize that among Messianic Jews, or even gentile Christians interested in Jewish roots, Bultman is a menace. It doesn't follow that we throw out the research and scholarship of more liberal schools, rather we should interact with them. ... Regardless, of the positioning of his opponents, the only area in his book that he even attempts to interact with other scholars is in the end notes. Kind of leaves a dry taste in you mouth.

The second problem is the lack of discussion of problem texts. Young interacts with Matt. 5:17 (which isn't even Pauline, the subject of the book) acceptably, and has some interesting points on occurances in Acts, but leaves out discussing problem texts in Galatians, Colossians, Romans, and 1 Corinthians.

Dr. Young's thesis is by no means original, so it would have been nice if he had made some contributions to the discussion, but the book was generally just restating the same arguments that have always been presented from the Jewish roots supporters. In the future I'd like to see Dr. Young write a more technical book such as other Jewish roots scholars are doing (alla Nanos) and actually make contributions to the discussion instead of restating the same ol' arguments.

All of Dr. Young's books are wonderful, and great for reading as well as for in-depth Bible study groups. This book is more then interesting, its a must read! Too long has the Church looked with "Greek eyes" at "Jewish things." Dr. Young teaches that the allegorical interpretations of the parables of Yeshua (Jesus) as taught by early Church fathers are far from the Roots System, Judaism. Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi, His means of teaching was indeed Hebraic, and not Greek as so many believe it to be. When He returns, He will still be Jewish, Dr. Young's books all point to this fact. We at Mayim Hayim Ministries rate this book 5 stars, and our prayer would be that it would be read by many many more pastors and teachers. Great book for home schooling.

Concrete poems force you to dance, shimmy, and shake when read. These are not poems that tiptoe around a subject. They stomp! They laugh out loud...and this laughter is contagious! I find myself going back to the book time and time again...just one more peek, I tell myself for the 37th time.

This collection of poems is a language lover's dream! It is a juggler throwing words up in the air just to see how they come down again, only to be caught, and returned to the air.

This is a book that will not allow you to sit still. Children will catch the excitement of poetry as well. May they run with it and have a blast!

I love this book. It is my favorite book ever. I dont think you need to understand the poems in order to enjoy them. I really recommend it

Readers who state that concrete poetry is too advanced for children are unaware of how stilted that thinking is. If the children were writing the criticisms, you would surely get a different view.

Poetry does not exist to be "gotten" (or understood) by it's readers, or pigeon-holed into one interpretation. Do not underestimate the capacity of a child to comprehend a poet's message. This book is a wonderful opportunity for children to learn to love and appreciate poetry. Children learn to write by using a combination of writing and drawing (driting). So this book is the perfect segway into a genre that many children never learn to appreciate, because it is force-fed to them from the beginning as something that has one purpose. They are led to believe the goal of reading poetry is to discover "the meaning," and in the process the joy is taken away. Maybe that is why so many adults cannot appreciate poetry. They do not know how. This thinking is not a way to promote literacy.

If you want poems that are dumbed-down to meet what you think a child can appreciate about poetry at an early age, then do not buy this book.

Otherwise, do your child an incredible favor and allow them to explore, at their own pace, this book and this genre.