The cover blurb calls Guedalla's style 'glittering' and 'epigrammatic'; I'd call it tortuous and frustrating. How sad that the definitive biography of the taciturn, straightforward Duke of Wellington is so wordy and vague.

The behavior of the models mathematical in the stability of power systems

A scientist in New England becomes convinced that an earthquake in the area is imminent. No one believes him of course, but fans of the disaster genre should know that that is one bad call to make. A fun read, but nothing special.

This book has many interesting anecdotes as well as helpful checklists, tips and a useful appendix of self-tests. It's and easy read and a good introduction to leadership.

Arthur G. Patzia's 'Emergence of the Church' combines New Testament background (what was Judaism like in first-century Palestine? What was life like in the Roman empire? and so on) with exposition of what the Bible says about the growth of Christianity. The book's sources are pretty strictly biblical: the Didache is dated at or beyond 100 (p.99), and discussed only at the fringe, and the clearly first-century ROTAS square (buried under the products of the volcanic eruption of 79) does not figure, even when Patzia comes to discuss (p.138) whether there were first-century churches in Italy outside Rome.

If description and discussion of what the Bible says about the early Church is what you're looking for, this is a good book to choose. The ambience is distinctly Fuller, and here and there this brings up questions which would otherwise seem curious: Patzia notes (and he is right, as far as it goes) that 'there is no indisputable evidence in the Gospels that [Jesus] personally offered sacrifices in the temple during his public ministry' (p.186). All right, but what is implied here? That Jesus might have thought sacrifical cult wrong, or avoided it? Surely not likely, when Luke (2.24) records his parents making the prescribed offering in the temple for him.

Arthur G. Patzia is an intelligent reader of the Bible and a throughgoing expositor. His book deserves a wide audience.

If you agree or disagree with the author is matter of opinion, but I can say ont thing it did generated alot of emotions, this can be a positive or negative depending on your view.

Read this for a seminar on Freedom and Responsibility. For those with a legal background, it presents little NEW material. The thesis is that the law's treatment of luck, risks, and responsibility (and everything else) stems from a concern about protecting the fair terms of interaction between persons. This focus tends to reject a legal subjectivist account of the law that centers on the subject's motives or beliefs in favor of looking at which actions a "reasonable person" would take to be fair in terms of the security and liberty risks of persons. While not quite offering a fresh perspective on legal analysis, the work does bring up many of the interesting issues and problem areas in the law.

This is a nice book but I am not able to give it a blistering endorsement. For me, it was too shy on day-to-day descriptions of the work of an escort ship. I was hoping to better understand how they operated. Like many British veterans of WWII, Rayner is too close with the truly juicy bits. On the other hand, his is an interesting story, full of fun pieces of sea lore and wartime history. But the British standoffishness keeps the reader at bay a bit too much.

This small guide covers the essentials of island hopping in the Greek isles. Nearly every inhabitable island is covered, but in order to do this, depth is sacrificed. If wondering what island to go to, or if spending the summer hopping islands, then this will be helpful. If planning on one island, I would recommend a book concerning just that island and perhaps a general guide to Greece.

My wife and I had a great time in Greece and look forward to going back.

The legendary deer known as the Milu, was thought to be extinct until a Basque missionary, Pere David stumbled upon them in the Chinese emperor's private park in the second half of the 19th century. Pere David smuggled a specimen to Europe igniting in the process, a clamour among several European nations to acquire a live animal. Eventually the Boxer rebellion led to the deer's extirpation from China but a herd survived in England on the private estate of the 11th Duke of Bedford. Robert Twigger's tale is a mix of whimsical, sometimes cheeky romps through history, and modern day divergences into the meaning of truth, myths and evolution.