Dr. Nicolle once again sheds light on an era that is foggy. Anyone interested in the peoples that rose up from the ashes of Rome will find this book stimulating. Excellent illustrations, as usual, from Angus Mcbride. Cons ( true for most of the Osprey books ): the timespan is perhaps too great for a work of this size ( 4th Century to 11th century ). Not enough concise maps. Pros: Sums up the major political trends that set the stage for the Normans. Exposed me for the first time to the real Arthur. Hence, 4 stars instead of 5.

Assuming that King Arthur actually existed in some form, which is still at best a problematic assumption, this book goes well outside any particular era he would have lived through; if nothing else there is a vast amount of information on the Anglo-Saxons in here, the people he supposedly fought against. Still and all, the book does a fine job on illuminating one of the darker eras of European history.

David Nicolle does his best, as always, at reading between the lines of chronicles, art, and many works that were written well after the fact to try and peice together informaion on this broad time period. His notes on weapons, armour, and tactics are very solid, not too far out on speculation, yet not so conservative to stifle any real potentiallities. "Arthur" himself makes only a fleeting appearance in these pages, which is appropriate.

Angus McBride (absolutely no relation) does his usual magnificent job of illustrating the warriors of the era. Not only does he show a fine sense of detail, but the paintings are characters, not merely "soldiers on parade" -- each of them is a unique individual and looks at home and quite comfortable (as well as one can be) in the armour worn.

how could you give this book anything other than a five star rating. the scholarly writing is excellant, and the art is wonderful! you cannot go wrong with David Nicolle and Angus McBride. buy this and be happy!

Folks who don't like selections, should probably avoid from buying books labelled as such. IMHO. This audio recording is the best and ACC is anything but tedious! The 2001 passages filled my waking and sleeping dreams for days afterwards and echo there still!

This is a wonderful collection of some of the best of AC Clarke's works, read by the author. Very engrossing, especially the excepts from 2001, Childhood's End, and several of the stories. Get to know this GREAT author through this excellent audio selection.

Good Book

I have to admit I bought this book by mistake, thinking it the work of Arthur C. Clarke. You see, Clarke's name is big and bold above the title, while the actual author's name is rather hidden.

In any case, the story revolves around SPARTA, a.k.a. Linda, a.k.a. Ellen Troy, a genetically altered genius. Apparently, their are bad people who want to abuse poor SPARTA, so she must escape.

The problem is, about a third of the way through the book, it briefly becomes about Nikos the shipper and his efforts to keep his father's shipping business alive.

Then it's about Sondra Sylvester and her attempts to own an antique book.

After that, it's about an accident in space and the crew of the "Star Queen."

Finally, we get back to SPARTA. In short, this book meanders all over the solar system attempting to find a consistent plot. I realize this is only volume one of a six volume series, but try a little story cohesion. If the first novel struggles with a through line, how can you expect the series to hang together?

An excellent book and an easy read that combines a good mystery with a SF setting. I have read four of the six books in the series so far, and each has been excellent. The author combines great immagery and vocabulary and a great story line. With 6 books in the series, there is plenty to keep up the interest. Although it is a light read, this is a pure SF book. There are few ,if any, fantasy components.

If you're a guy. You will love SPARTA/LINDA. She is a dream (conceived by male writers... I would love to get a female's opinion of this book). This is very good reading of the Asimov/detective/SF variety. An easy read that combines a good detective mystery with a futuristic setting. There are 6 books in the series, so there is plenty to follow. Although it is a light read, this is a pure SF book. There are few ,if any, fantasy components.

I first read this series when it came out in the late 1980's. They are highly entertaining and among my favorite books, it is high time they got a second printing. This third installment which takes us to Mars is as enjoyable as the rest, though my favorite is the second installment, "Maelstrom".

Over the years I've had a lot of fun with Sparta and "The Free Spirit". I just wish I knew how to get my hands on one of those "Snark" attack helicopters. Ellen Troy and Blake Redfield are captivating heros, who like the rest of us, have their flaws. Any Clarke faithful who doesn't enjoy this series might want to think about going one size larger the next time they buy new skivvies.

Anyone who enjoys this and other "Venus Prime" novels should look for "Core", another enjoyable work by Preuss. (For anyone who's curious, the origional names for the Venus Prime books are "The Breaking Strain", "Maelstrom", "Hide and Seek", "The Medusa Encounter", "The Diamond Moon", and "The Shining Ones" respectively.)

I don't think Paul Preuss is attemting to take Clark's place in science fiction history. The three installments thus far of Venus Prime are clever and enjoyable mysteries. The books are well written (if not carefully edited - Clark's intro in the second book refers to the first manned orbit of the moon by Apollo 8 Christmas 1969 - AFTER the first moon landing) and fun to read. Enjoy them for what they are, and leave the comparisons to 2001 out of the experience.

preuss captures clarke's tone and complexity--a nice entry in a superior series

Many of our roots run deep into Celtic Myth and Legend. The Tuatha de Dannan, their cycle of the Year and many of our holiday names are derived from the Celtic.

But how much does the average pagan know about the stories from whence these things came? How many know the story of Lugh, or the men of Ulster, or even who the Gods of the Britain's were? We may know a fragment here or a passage there, but many of the really good stories go untold.

Mr. Charles Squire has collected some of these stories from the old texts and put them in one place for us to read, without us having to sort through a myriad of books to get just the right ones.

I found his selection to be very deliberate in choosing the stories that epitomize Celtic Mythology. The stories of the Tuatha de Dannan are the foundation of the Celtic Traditions, and from these sprout the Fairy Trads as well. The story of the Kings of Tara are also a good choice for it is part of Gaelic/Irish traditions.

I have always liked the stories of King Cormac and Finn mac Coul. Balor and his daughter, Gwen and Gwyddneu, Manawyddan and the early stories of King Arthur all evoke pictures of heroes and heroines.

If you do not have a collection of Celtic Myths and Legends, then pick this one up. The selection of stories is excellent and gives a good overall picture of the wonderful stories from the Celts. If you already have a book or two, as I do, then supplement your collection with this one. Each of the books I have contain stories that are similar, but there are always the different ones that can not be found elsewhere.

This book is a classic, and is one of the best collections of Celtic myth on the market. Maybe _the_ best. Everyone who is a mythophile or a Celtophile should have a copy of this.

That said, it isn't perfect. Most of the flaws in it can be traced to the time in which it was written (1912). First, it stretches too far to compare everything to a Greek or Roman myth. To call the Dagda "Zeus" or Branwen "Aphrodite" is a little inaccurate, in my opinion, but I try to keep in mind the fact that he was presenting the Celtic myths to an audience obsessed with Greek myths. He even mentioned in his foreword that part of the reason for writing the book is because he was bored with poets' constant classical allusions, and wanted to give them a fresh well of legend on whicb to draw. So, in drawing parallels between Celtic and Greek myth, he was probably just trying to translate the Celtic myths into a format that his audience would understand.

The second, and more serious, gripe is Squire's anti-paganism. He buys into every rumor ever spread about Druidic human sacrifice. While at least one body has been found which was probably the victim of sacrifice, there is no evidence I've seen to indicate that the Celtic religion was the bloodbath it has sometimes been made out to be. Human sacrifice seems to have been present but very rare. Squire loves the Celts' stories, but tends to present the people themselves as bloodthirsty savages in dire need of Christianity to "civilize" them. Again, this may just be a product of Squire's times; he might have had to bash paganism just to get his book published in those days. Or the stories of widespread sacrifice may have been more commonly accepted as historical fact. I don't know. But if you can take his bias with a grain of salt, this is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Celtic myth.

This book is great for the beginning reader of celtic mythology. Although it is fairly heavy reading it covers many points (not always in great depth) that can then be followed up in other books.

A very useful purchase that is opened at least once a week in my household for reference reasons.

This book is good in reviewing the technical aspects of creating treatment plans and developing diagnoses. For a book about the art of listening in psychotherapy, read Inside Therapy, for which Irvin Yalom contributes a foreword and discusses the concept of creating "a new therapy for each patient."

I found this book very helpful. It is clear and concise. It offers practical interventions along with short term and long term treatment plans. I wish it were available in the Spanish language.

I have found this book to be an excellent companion when doing case reviews with managed care companies. As many in the field know; providing clear, concise and measurable short-term goals are the key to getting our patient's treatment authorized. This book will give you all the correct buzz words you need and cut down on the time taken on the phone with these companies.

I've been studying philosophy for five years now and I found it very useful to read book, because Danto truly brings the reader back to basic questions that I had already forgotten. I think in a way he deals with the biggest question in philosophy namely "What is philosophy". The first part of the book contains a very interesting discussion on nature of philosophical problems and how they differ from scientific ones. After this Danto considers some of the basic concepts of philosophy such as "understanding" "knowledge" and "world". Many might say that Danto's conception is quite old fashioned

If you are interested in Danto's philosophy of art you should read this book, because his conception of philosophy has clearly influenced it. "The problem of indiscernibles", which is the starting point of his philosophy of art, is based on Danto's conception of the nature of philosophical problems. Reading this book will deepen your understanding of his aesthetics.

Danto is a magnificent writer and he is so clear sometimes I had to wonder whether there was anything deep in this book. I think it's not hard to sound deep if you write like some French philosophers, but it is a true sign of a great philosopher that he can express difficult ideas clearly. And Danto manages to fulfil this criterion perfectly.

Danto is one of the most influential but at the same time misconceived philosophers of art today. People have widely misunderstood two of his major thesis. Danto's notion of the "Artworld" has been mixed up with George Dickie's institutional theory of art and the end of art has been taken to mean the death of art. Both of these misconceptions are quite severe. In this book Danto tries to clarify his thoughts and express what he doesn't mean by these notions. For him the end of art means that a certain historical development has come to an end and that pluralism reigns in the artworld. There are no a priori conditions for being an artwork and basically any item in the world can also be an artwork. Danto doesn't see the end of art as a bad thing but he even seems to think that a new golden age of art can begin. But there are also threats if artists aren't ingenious enough. The end of art has also many consequences. Art criticism becomes much harder because all basic guidelines of appreciation and evaluation have disappeared. Every artwork has to be taken as an individual. The philosophical consequence is that the philosophy of art has to change. If anything can be an artwork then no definition of art can be founded on perceptual properties. Danto sees the history of aesthetics as relevantly barren, because philosophers like Kant have considered beauty to be an essential feature of art.

Danto also discusses his notion of the "artworld". In this book he says that he means by this concept that when an object is transfigured into the artworld, this object is set in to a relation with every other artwork in the world and therefore it can posses meanings that mere real things lack. He also takes up an old and neglected idea of the style matrix, which he introduced already in his classic article "The Artworld" that appeared in 1964. I truly find Danto's ideas of the artworld extremely interesting and it is shame that people have misunderstood him so badly. The last article in the book "Modalities of History" is one of the best Danto has ever written and it shows how important the history of art is for him. In the article he tries to show with the help of some examples what he means by the phrase that he inherited from Wöllflin "not everything is possible at every time."

Like always Danto's writing style is very fluent and eloquent. His knowledge on the history of art is just astounding. Many of Danto's books that have appeared after The Transfiguration of the Commonplace haven't been that important for his general theory but this book is absolutely vital if you want to understand his philosophy of art.

Dr. Danto has provided a nicely balanced, well-written overview of the fundamental concepts of Philosophy. This volume offers rich historical context by comparing and contrasting familiar views of both the ancients and contemporary thinkers while incorporating Danto's own perspective. This book is enjoyable to read and accessible to most anyone.

This was the first Arthur Book I bought for my four year old daughter...who very strongly believes in Santa . As I was nearing the end of this book while reading it to her, I realized where we were going with the ending. I understand if your target age is ten years old or so and they are doubtful, but I had to explain to my daughter after we finished the book why Santa didn't eat the stuff that Arthur had worked so hard on, and why the sister got rid of it all. I bought this book at a school book fair, and I was really looking forward to introducing her to Arthur Books. Now, I can't say that I'll ever buy another one.

Arthur worked hard and did a good jo

Not only a great children's book, but a great book for the parent. Loads of subtle humor if you look close enough (flavors of ice cream at the ice cream shop). A great book for all!

A book of judgment. Author David Cesarini brings his own prejudices to the biography, which is essentially a politically-correct indictment of Koestler.

Cesarini apparently rummaged through the Koestler archives and selected any evidence of AK's behavior, beginning in the early 20th century, that is clearly unacceptable when judged by the illiberal PC standards of today.

In countless pages, the author describes Koestler's affairs and one night stands, drunken episodes and -- what Cesarini consistently condemns -- male chauvinism.

The author moans constantly about Koestler's girlfriends and wives having to cook, clean, do menial chores or do dictation. But Cesarini, like most in the narrow-minded politically correct camp, fails to understand that Koestler is a man of his time and it was typical for European women born in the early 1900s to assume a traditional role.

The book smells of PC stuff, which is a pity because Koestler is arguably the one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century who remains a mystery.

Cesarini had many opportunities to push PC into the background and focus on Koestler's character. For example, the chance of a fascinating glimpse of Koestler is when Cesarini begins to describe a lunch AK had with B.F. Skinner, an arch intellectual nemesis in the later years. But that's passed over in one sentence.

But the height of irresponsibility comes when Cesarini refers to Koestler as a "serial rapist." Is that a legal phrase? A psychiatric diagnosis? What does it mean? Is it based on opinions or facts? If he has facts, where are they? Certainly not in the book. Apparently the accusation is based on one interview in the book. But recounting an alleged rape today, which the woman says took place decades ago, and implying that it is the truth after the accused has been dead for nearly 20 years, is shoddy journalism. Facts are something that Cesarini discards if they get in the way of his real agenda, which eventually emerges. Cesarini tries to paint Koestler as an immoral character, then explain the character defect by suggesting it results from a rejection of his Jewishness.

That theme plays throughout but it really has little to do with one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 20th century. AK's Jewishness may be important, but it is certainly not the most important thing about AK.

Koestler, it seemed, his whole life was trying to find a harmonious balance between what he would call integration and self-assertion, on both the collective and individual levels. Cesarini fails to understand that AK did not limit his concerns to one religion or individual, for example, but encompassed religion in general and the individual in general and the struggle for co-existence between the two. As the world changes from two big opposing Blocs to a vast mosaic of often dangerously nationalistic entities, Koestler's ideas may form the groundwork for others to build on.

An undercurrent of envy also exists. Koestler was an intellectual who counterbalanced thinking and writing with exuberant action. All his books grappled with the theme of contradiction between two poles: thought and action, ideal and real, tragic and trivial, mysticism and science. There are no Koestlers anymore. Western intellectuals today are typically academics (like Cesarini), who are pretty much comfortably seated in the armchair with a book. Their envy of other intellectuals who passionately pursue women, drink and adventure is understandable.

The redeeming facet of the book is that it does contain a collection of personal incidents that were never made public before. Like the time Koestler raced Camus on all fours on a Paris street. The raw material from the archives, given a less-biased, less politically-correct treatment, would have made a superb biography.

Cesarini's book stands as a prime example of the salad bar approach to biography, where the author picks and chooses only specific components of a person's life and makes a dish tailored to his own narrow agenda.

Koestler is the lost prophet of the 20th Century.In fact I only know much about him, thanks to my late father who was a fan (and curiously was born and died five years later than Koestler). He explored such areas as LSD, eastern religion, voluntary euthanasia and nuclear disarmament years before most people... He was caught up in many of the ideological causes of the age- Communism and later anti-Communism, Zionism, the movements against capital punishment and nuclear weaponry (although curiously he espoused abortion), as well as rubbing shoulders with a number of well-known people from different countries. No way do I agree with everything he said, but he has been written off because he alienated certain people. His writings about science for example, contain many controversies, but at the same time they contain many home truths.

I would recommend Cesarani's biography, for the simple reason there is so little on Koestler now, and his books are mostly out of print. It is heavy going at times, and there is a slight self-righteous tone going through the book. Koestler did do and say some objectionable things (wife beating for example and bullying), but then again so have many "great people". Winston Churchill for example said and did far worse things. Cesarani is right to point out Koestler's tendency to neglect his Jewish roots, but he overplays this theme since he repeats it through the book (partially because Cesarani is a Jewish historian). Most interesting in this book is Koestler's life which touched on many important events, many places and ideologies and which is an incredible life by any standards.

We need to re-examine Koestler, I think for many of the reasons above. Here are some books I recommend by him.

Darkness at Noon (novel)- about Soviet show trials. A classic of its time.

The Case of the Midwife Toad (out of print)- about the virtual character assassination of the scientist Kammerer and his startling experiments about evolution.

The Ghost in the Machine - Like Synchronicity, this gave its name to an album by The Police, and talks about the uncomfortable idea that the human brain may have dangerous self-destructive flaws in it, and that modern psychology (of that time of course) may have to reassess itself.

I would also recommend his essays such as Drinkers of Infinity, and The Heel of Achilles.

Just 40 years ago, he was considered one of Europe's great literary minds, and one of Zionism's most prominent intellectual stewards. Yet today, his reputation lies in such tatters that we need a new biography just to remind us that he wrote five novels aside from Darkness at Noon, as well as countless influential pieces of non-fiction.

What makes Arthur Koestler's fall into obscurity doubly surprising is that his intellectual trajectory ran alongside that of George Orwell, an author who couldn't be farther from obscurity if he were alive and writing today.

The similarities are startling: Both writers were leftists who awakened to the evils of jackboot ideology in war-torn Spain; both returned from the fight against Franco to denounce the propagandism of Europe's Russophilic intelligentsia; and both are remembered best by signature dystopic masterpieces in which they laid bare the frightening psychological engine at the heart of totalitarianism.

And yet Orwell's reputation is still strong despite a career cut short by illness in 1950, while Koestler's star faded long before his death 33 years later. So, why? This is one of the many interesting questions that David Cesarani raises in his dry, but methodically rendered biography, Arthur Koestler, The Homeless Mind (Random House, $45).

The pink decade of the '30s ended less than 60 years ago, but by post-Soviet lights, it seems more like centuries. Still, it is worth revisiting, if only to enjoy the highly charged political writing of the period. While modern authors and literary critics fight their culture wars over such issues as multiculturalism and feminism, mid-century antecedents such as George Orwell, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, and Andre Gide wrote their great works in the shadow of real wars. Millions of lives actually were up for grabs in their struggle to disabuse Europe's Communists and fellow travellers of totalitarian sympathies. Between the publication of Darkness at Noon in 1940, and his abandonment of political writing in 1955, no author did more to further this effort than Arthur Koestler.

But, as Cesarani illustrates in his rigidly chronological account of the writer's life, anti-communism was just one of the monomaniacal phases that filled Koestler's 78 years. As a young journalist, he moved from Zionism to Marxism to communism to anti-communism. He then picked up with anti-communism as a novelist, shifted into anti-revolutionism, and then adopted full-blown anti-rationalism. He flirted again with Zionism after the Second World War, then launched himself into chest-thumping Cold War jingoism, and finally retreated full time into his cranky obsession with science, psychology, and the mysticism that had suffused his life's work.

From a literary point of view, however, Koestler's only works of enduring value came between Darkness at Noon and The God That Failed in 1950. Before this period, his writing consisted largely of straightforward reportage and boilerplate left-wing propaganda. Afterward, when the battle for the West's most influential minds had already been largely won, his writing became sententious and sophomoric.

Unfortunately, Cesarani does not concentrate his efforts on that jewel of a decade sandwiched in between. Arthur Koestler's early meanderings through Palestine and Europe are all recounted with abundant, and often excessive, detail. At many points, whole pages are devoted to endless descriptions of marginal figures who flitted through Koestler's life. Yet where more interesting details are concerned -- Koestler's many fantastic domestic disputes and episodes of continental debauch, for instance -- Cesarani errs on the side of stinginess. How much better the book would have been if the author had trimmed some of the dry factual tinder to make room for full-bloomed treatment of Koestler's more intriguing adventures!

On the other hand, Cesarani does not flinch from describing Koestler's many faults -- especially the author's despicable attitude toward women. As episode after episode reveals, Koestler was a pathological adulterer, a misogynist, and, on several occasions, an unrepentant date-rapist. He was also a hopelessly self-destructive, vain, arrogant, and self-pitying man who marred each of his important relationships with disgraceful, drunken rows. In other words, he was in every way the psychological antipode to the ascetic, sober, humble "Burma Sergeant" who authored 1984 and Animal Farm.

Moreover, as with all egomaniacs, Koestler had the tendency to externalize his most obnoxious qualities. In his autobiographical works, Arrow in the Blue and The Invisible Writing, Koestler alternated between attributing his antisocial pathologies to dubious childhood traumas, and explaining them away by casting himself as the protagonist and victim of some redemptive cosmic journey.

What is odd in Cesarani's biography is that at the same time that he catalogues Koestler's many flaws, he seems anxious to claim him as one who "exemplified the Jewish experience in Europe during the twentieth century." In the book's early pages, especially, Cesarani eagerly traces each of Koestler's important life decisions to some profound but unspoken Judaic or Zionist impulse. The effort is hardly convincing, but even if it were, the reader is left wondering why anyone would want to claim this dissolute bully as one of their own.

But it was not just because Koestler was so disgusting in his personal life that his reputation has suffered. Unlike Orwell, who rejected doctrinaire communism in favour of democratic socialism, Koestler saw the socialist experiment as naive and anachronistic (and he said as much in the rather condescending obituary he wrote for Orwell). Although Koestler was quite positively against communism, he had no concrete vision of what should replace it. It was this intellectual failing that would ultimately nudge Koestler into useless teleological utopianism.

As with the life it describes, this biography fades into melancholy in its final chapter. Koestler died under bad circumstances -- a successful suicide attempt ending a nervous and itinerant life full of many attempts that were not. In a final Pharaonic gesture that cemented his reputation for cruel selfishness, he even convinced his perfectly healthy wife to accompany him into death. Sad to say, but it was an emblematic end to the life of the brilliant but despicable man who gave the world Darkness at Noon.

The authoress rather betrays her ignorance of several aspects of living cultures, despite perhaps good intentions. Particularly disappointing is her treatment of Hinduism.

To start with, anyone with serious intentions to explore the origins of what is known today as Hinduism should have known that the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) stands totally debunked. Besides, though the name Hinduism is relatively modern, ancient Hindus did have a name for what goes by that apellation today - they called it the Sanatana Dharma or The Eternal Religion, loosely translated. The authoress fails to mention that.

Clearly, an irrevocable corollary of the claim to an eternal nature is one to universality. Thus, Hindus of Vedic and Upanishadic times were fully aware that the infinite variation in human temperaments would have to be accmmodated in any system that lay claim to universality in this sense. Several mantras in the Vedas and later texts stress the underlying unity of mankind presaging the modern ideal of universal brotherhood by thousands of years. An essential instrument in the underlying philosophical framework enabling truth-claims to be made for such assertions are the notions of Atman and Paramatman.

There are sophisticated systems of thought and philosophy on the nature of this apparent dichotomy which again vanishes through systems of spiritual discipline roughly collected together under the broad name of Yoga. Surely the literally hundreds of manuscripts of thess genres should have merited greater respect, or at least a deeper, detailed and more serious scholarship? The writer is thus far off in failing to gauge the depths of Hinduism and presenting the entire gamut of important milestones in the spiritual history of man in a somewhat shallow manner.

This is an excellent introductory book on this vast subject. It gives an excellent introduction to Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. It then goes on describing less well known spiritual disciplines, such as: Jainism, Tantra, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and Shinto.

The structure of the book, and its overall user friendliness reminds me of the "Dummies" series. This is if you want the Eastern Philosophy for Dummies. In my mind, this is the greatest compliment. Just like the Dummies series, this book invites you to read more on the subject covered, but gives you an excellent foundation.

Though I have not yet completed this book, I am always impressed by Morgan's grasp of her subject matter and her wry delivery. This is not your average dry text. If you've got a hankering for excellent commentary on Eastern Religions, buy it. Morgan doesn't disappoint!