As one who has personal knowledge about the investigation into Mr. Guppy, I think that he attempts to portray an extreme act of greed, and the fact that he got caught into a Robin Hood type of scenario. He eliminates most embarrassing mistakes, and focuses on how brilliant he is. Tis a shame, as the story could have been quite good.

Although this book is let down by poor editing, the story itself is something of a classic. In many parts hilariously recounted, Roll the Dice tells how a brilliant young man who seemingly had it all staged an armed robbery of precious gems in a New York hotel and manged to convince Lloyds of London to pay out some £2M in insurance moneys. The fact that Lloyds had, in the eyes of the author, been responsible for his father's loss of an equivalent sum, was sweet revenge to him. Although some would see this as a convenient explanation, to be fair to Guppy, he makes clear that this was only part of his motivation, with sheer bravado and boredom with the gilded society in which he mixed playing at least as important a role. Two years after his sting against the world's largest insurers, however, he was betrayed by a supergrass who had struck a deal with police officers in return for leniency for his own criminal endeavours and Guppy found himself in Brixton jail. For me the most fascinationg aspect of the story is the insight given into the author's character. As a result of his exploits, Guppy became for a number of years a favourite subject matter for the British media - hardly surprising since his story could have come straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster - but his portrayal at their hands was at best two dimensional and, more often than not, plain libellous. One cannot help feeling that many of the criticisms levelled agaisnt him were prompted by envy and a sense of schadenfreude. The reader detects an interesting mix of anarchism and puritanism in the author, together with a profound dissatisfaction with the privileged and vacuous sloane ranger set with which he came into contact as a result of his upbringing. It is quite clear, for example, that he feels more at home with the armed robbers and assorted villains he meets in prison, and whom he describes as more interesting, more honourable and, paradoxically, more honest than the cocktail party set he found so dull. Interesting too is his friendship with Earl Spencer, brother of the Princess of Wales, with whom he bonds despite his background and not because of it, and also his love affair with a working class girl from the North of England whom he marries and with whom he has a child. Although a number of reviewers have labelled Guppy "arrogant" as a rsult of his actions, this seems a faulty description. Far from being arrogant, Guppy comes across as an intelligent and able young man with a sense of humour who feels empathy with those less fortunate than himself, such as his fellow inmates in jail, and as someone who has a deep sense of loyalty towards his family and friends. One suspects that it is his hatred of the media and his contempt for the upper echelons of English society and of the establishment whom he regards as hypocritical and immoral that have, in fact, earned him the label "arrogant." Rather, Guppy is a character with which any buccaneer from Elizabethan times or any 19th Century Anarchist would have identified. The world would surely be a duller place without such people.

This is one of three similar anthologies on Burma travel writings that has appeared recently. Unfortunately the book is overpriced. It is printed on poor quality paper in India. For my money the TRAVELLER'S HISTORY OF BURMA or INROADS INTO BURMA : A Travellers' Anthology are excellent, cheaper and have better quality paper.

A superb, unsurpassed compilation of little known traveller's tales to the land once known as Burmah (Burma), now known as Myanmar. I'd highly recommend it.

This book is great for young readers but by no means for serious re-enactors. It is very simplistic and gosh geared for kids. If you want serious research material with great pictures look at the DK series Roman book. That is a good reference. This book is not bad just not for re-enactors or even adults.

This book provides valuable data for those who are interested in re-enactment of the Roman Legions or who are interested in the details of how Roman soldiers were equipped, lived, and fought. If you are interested in this I would recommend that you buy this book.

Especially in the early going, the book suffers from cloyingly pretentious prose and laborious plot summary, but eventually Christopher gets around to saying some interesting things about the genre. The book is a perfectly imperfect illustration of the difficulty in finding a middle ground between academic and popular writing. Still, worth having if only for the extensive filmography.

This isn't the perfect book on film noir, but it is very interesting because Christopher touches on films that don't get discussed in a lot of books on film noir.

Chief among these are two Val Lewton horror films, Cat People and The Seventh Victim. It is nice to see someone discussing Lewton from a film noir perspective. Also, Christopher left me burning to see Breakdown, a 1965 film dealing with a scientist's mental crisis that he makes sound fascinating.

He also does a good job talking about more famous noirs, particularly Criss Cross, which he examines from the Dan Dureyea character's perspective. That brings a fresh approach to his discussion of this classic film noir.

This should not be anyone's first book on film noir, but it takes interesting positions and makes the reader look at things differently. Recommended for the person deeply into noir.

Boscorelli's book is not designed for beginners, as he states from the outset, but the projects contained therein wouldn't satisfy the "advanced builder" he claims to be targeting.

The projects largely accomplish simple, well-established processing tasks but use circuits that are overly component-heavy, and you'll often find obscure parts that require mail-ordering. Many projects require wall-wart power supplies of varying current and voltage when a design COULD have been made with a 9v battery and "standard" components in mind.

There is an interesting section on effects theory, for those that wish to make their own designs from scratch, but I don't find it superior to the information widely available on the better homebrew FX builders' pages.

A few slight adjustments or added explanatory sections, and this book could have been perfectly suitable for beginners, which would make this book seem a lot more relevant-- after all, most advanced builders are likely to have already built several basic distortions, compressors, and the like, which is the majority of what he offers here.

Overall, beginners would be much better off starting with anything from Craig Anderton, while the advanced users should stick to the homebrew pages. For thirty bucks, this book is a real disappointment.

With so many books these days aimed at beginners it's refreshing to find one that doesn't coddle. The Stompbox Cookbook: Build Advanced Effects for Electric Guitar & Bass declares "for advanced builders" on its rear cover. The preface reads in part:

Canned effects live with limits imposed by retail viability. Building from scratch breaks those limits, and that's what this book is about. The text is written at the level of those who understand basic electronics, and who have mastered the skills needed to build intermediate to advanced projects. ... Beginners would profit from building simpler projects than these.

As a retired engineer my biases lean to just this approach. Yet some persons might not share my slant, so let's catalog the facts.

The book contains plans for 38 projects, 35 of them effects or processors, or accessories such as splitters and mixers. They break down as: distortion boxes (6), tremolos (6), vibrato (1), phase (1), compressors (2), sustainers (2), tone/EQ (4), axe-based effects (2), and miscellaneous (11, including noise gate, companding system, envelope-driven filter, transformer isolation circuit, several others). The remaining three projects are a power supply, an audio burst generator, and a ramp generator.

The book presents the projects in a uniform style that includes a circuit description, schematic, parts list, printed circuit pattern, and a parts placement and wiring diagram. Most projects add a photo of the soldered prototype. Many projects include photos of oscilloscope waveforms that shed light on the workings of the circuit. The projects use parts available through well known mailorder suppliers.

Some projects take a conventional approach, while others leave the beaten path. For example, the SSM2120 dynamic control chip has been the subject of several do-it-yourself compressors and noise gates over the past decade. This book takes the SSM2120's control path outside the chip, giving the player command of attack, decay, threshold, and ratio. Some of its '2120 projects incorporate program-responsive attack and decay, and soft- knee compression. Speaking as someone who's followed electronics for nearly five decades, these features represent firsts for do-it-yourselfers. Throw in several effects that are gated or internally companded and, yes, this work qualifies as advanced.

Besides projects, the book dishes up a generous serving of what it calls "ingredients"--circuit blocks that perform specific audio or control functions, the stated end being to equip the builder to create new effects. The ingredients are divided into dynamic processors, distortion, tone control, tremolo, vibrato & phase, noise reduction, and delay modes, plus several minor categories and a chapter on tube sound. The book includes a particularly rich treatment of placing stompbox functions under voltage control, and a lucid essay on compression.

The book boasts a lavish complement of photos and diagrams, most conveying useful information. It concludes with a brief discussion of troubleshooting, and a robust reference list for those inclined to dig deeper.

Boscorelli's writing is concise and clear, occasionally stylish, and largely devoid of hyperbole.

Soft spots? Little on wah effects, less on frequency dividers, and only the most basic treatment of ring modulators. But what this book takes on it renders with breadth and depth.

I'm tempted to judge The Stompbox Cookbook by its target audience and stated objectives, in which case it rates 9.9 out of 10. But reviews ultimately prove their worth by how well they inform prospective buyers. This book's content speaks for itself. Prospective buyers should weigh whether that content is likely to meet their needs. Novices will find frustration, for the book speaks electronic jargon and doesn't stop to teach fundamentals. But for adept builders looking to devise their own effects, or wishing to learn in some detail how stompboxes work, nothing else in print delivers what this book does.

I like cigars, and I like mysteries. But this novel is far too cozy for my tastes.

Still, there are some interesting moments. The students' tradition of stealing the cigar store indian was a nice touch and made the protagonist's relationship to the community all nice and warm and fuzzy. Really. A good touch.

But the plot is predictable and so much attention is paid to what kind of cigar goes with what meal or drink, that it;s hard to take MURDER seriously.

Give me some tough hardboiled guys with broken bottles and brass knuckles over this kind of timid crime novel any day.

This was a very good mystery...one that kept me guessing to the very end. I never ever dreamed I'd read about cigars...but I have to admit, it was interesting to learn about them as well as the people who appreciate them...all this while reading a good mystery, too!

The Fist of God has a good plot and storyline, but a little thin on character development. It's a fast pace read and interesting, BUT some people are going to be offended by the VERY strong language. I suggest if you don't like books with four-letter words you might want to stay away from this one, OR wait until July for the clean copy. Regardless of the cussing, the message in the book was great.

My copy of The Fist of God was signed which I found very pleasing. It's nice when a writer appreciates his readers. The novel is very interesting. The plot kept me reading for hours at a time. A.T Nicholas' first attempt is a good one, and I will be looking forward to the next book by him.

Not bad for first novel. Kept me reading and interested. Looking forward to the next one.

I've had the same thought as others about Nicholas' last few books, but I was afraid to speak up and say anything because I thought I was the only one who felt that way! Nights in Rodanthe was okay, but like the last couple books it seemed like a repeat of predictable characters and circumstances. For the reviewer looking for fresh voices, I have many but I'll stick to two. If you want someone like Nicholas Sparks who expresses emotion and writes stories with great meaning, then I would follow other reviewers advice and pick up Shade of the Maple by Kirk Martin - it is the most beautiful novel I have read since The Notebook. I even cried reading an excerpt of his next book at thegraveldrive.com. When I want something warm and funny, I pick up Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow is excellent! I hope Nicholas returns to his former brilliance with the next one.

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE by Nicholas Sparks

Another love story by the author of MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE and other tragedy-laden romances, NIGHTS IN RODANTHE recalls an older woman's memories of a love lost, but not forgotten.

Adrienne Willis is 60 years old and is trying to help her daughter Amanda deal with the recent death of her young husband. Amanda does not seem to be able to cope with the death, ignoring her young children's needs and falling apart before them all. Adrienne decides to tell Amanda the story of a man she loved many years ago, but due to circumstances that kept them apart, they did not have a "happily ever after". She hopes that this story will help Amanda with her own loss.

Fourteen years ago, three years after Adrienne's husband Jack had left her for another woman, Adrienne honors a request to help take care of a friend's Bed and Breakfast Inn while her friend goes away on vacation. Adrienne has yet to move on with her life since the divorce, and time spent at the Inn may be what Adrienne needs. There is only one guest that weekend, and it is Paul Flanner, a surgeon who is going through his own nightmare of a past, and happens to stay at the Inn while he conducts some business in town.

Adrienne and Paul connect and as they get to know each other, they fall in love. Paul, however, has already committed to spending time in South America and be with his son, who also happened to be a doctor. He tells Adrienne that as soon as his work is done there, he will come back for her and they would have plenty of time to be together.

Obviously, things did not work out for Adrienne and Paul, since Adrienne was sitting in her kitchen with her recently widowed daughter. What happens after that week in Rodanthe is Adrienne's story to her daughter, and what Amanda learns from her mother helps bring her back to the world of the living.

This was yet another heartbreaking story by Nicholas Sparks and I highly enjoyed it. I have read all of his books, and I still come back for more. What I find interesting is that people he knows inspire him to write most of his books, and this book was no exception. Inspired by his own courtship with his wife, Sparks yet again has written a winning book.

After reading a few books of Nicholas Sparks, you think this one is going to be the same kind of "love story".
This is an encouraging novel for grown-ups who have lost the hope of falling in love once again.

Despite what the other reviewers wrote, Carrolly Erickson is an extremely gifted historian and author and ALEXANDRA is a probing but sympathetic look at a tragic historical figure. As is to be expected with Ms. Erickson's books, the writing is vivid and engaging. Ms. Erickson took a complex subject matter -- not just Tsarina Alexandra, but the Russian political climate of her time -- and made it easy to understand for the casual historian.

An observation: I have long been a student/collector of all things relating to Marie Antoinette and I have read Ms. Erickson's book TO THE SCAFFOLD. I was surprised she did not make the connections between Antoinette and Alexandra - for surely there were many. Both women were vilified by their husband's subjects. Antoinette was called the Austrian Whore, Alexandra the German Whore. Both women attempted to learn French - and both women struggled with the language. Both women responded to criticism in childish ways (Antoinette, in leading a frivilous life, thereby lending credence to the pamphleteers charges. Alexandra, by drawing spiteful portraits). Perhaps Ms. Erickson would consider writing a book titled: The Shared Traits of Tragic Queens - Josephine, Antoinette, Alexandra

My only negative comment would be that Ms. Erickson seemed to provide little original information. A perusal of her FOOTNOTES shows that she relied heavily on previously written biographies.

Still, all in all, a fabulously enthralling read.

I definitely confess to having a weakness for all things Russian including accounts of the Romanovs. While I wasn't sure what to expect from Carolly Erickson, I was extremely pleased with her most recent book, "Alexandra: The Last Tsarina". Other reviews have labeled the work "history lite" and I do see what they mean - very little time spent on Alexandra's views and influences politically (for which there exists substantial documentation as viewed in the Romanov classic "Nicholas and Alexandra" by Robert K. Massie) - it would have taken up too much page space describing political climates and individual personalitites. Nicholas also appears to be an intellectual lightweight with very little mind of his own. While he was easily influenced, there exists a decent amount of material indicating Nicholas' frustrations with his wife and her often highly emotional views (see Massie). However, Erickson should not be faulted for her excellent and highly readable prose. Russia of this era truely comes alive and a real sense of Alexandra's world helps aid the reader in making decisions about her behavior.

Also contradicting a below review, I definitely feel that Erickson's book has brought out at least two major new contributions to the scholarly work about the Romanovs. Namely, bringing to light the fixation of Nicholas and Alexandra with the French mystic, Phillippe Vachot, one time butcher then hypnotist and charlatan to the aristocracy. Their reliance on his judgements and spiritual healing so early in their marriage and reign is incredibly predictive of their later dependency on Rasputin, down to their referring to Vachot as "our friend" in correspondance to one another. The fact that Vachot stated prior to his death that he would be reincarnated in another man who would come to give them spiritual guidance, all but cemented the later easy acceptance of Rasputin. The second of Erickson's contribution centers around a more detailed account of Alexandra's ongoing health problems (someone with chronic leg pain is going to hate balls and receptions involving hours spent on her feet, regardless of her shyness) many of them mental in nature. Also, how easily accepted drugs of their period (barbituates and cocaine) were used by both Nicholas and Alexandra as little was known of side effects by physicians of the time. This drug use (which occurs right around WWI and the downfall of the monarchy) could only have greatly infuenced decisions made in a completely autocratic government.

An excellent work and one worthy of reading by any Russian scholar interested in the time period and Romanov dynasty.

This was an excellent read on Alexanda. I have read nearly all the books available about the Romanov dynasty and there were several facts in this book I had not read prior. This book stayed focused on the Tsarina herself and doesn't stray too far from her even though the Tsarvich's illness is addressed. This book explored her relationship within the court and the power struggles with her mother-in-law, the former Empress. Alexandra had her flaws to be sure but comes across as so human in this particular book. The author's style is so good I am now reading The First Elizabeth and have purchased Josephine and The Great Catherine to read in the near future. This author knows her subjects and stays refreshingly focused on the personality she writes about rather than jumping around. A very good read.

I cannot recommend this book. Don't get me wrong, I believe dreams are useful. I have been a psychologist for over 20 years now. I once had a patient who came to me and asked me what his dream meant. He told me he dreamt that he was a little tiny rat. And in this dream, he had an unquenchable urge to go and sit on a Lion's paw. Every time he would go and sit on the Lion's paw the lion would devour him and he would wake up. Upon further therapy with this patient he revealed that he worked in an office where he was trying to get ahead. He admitted that he was jealous of the top dog at the office. In attempts to "get ahead" this patient would write fake negative customer reports on this fellow in attempts to sabotage this particular coworker. He also wrote fake positive customer reports on himself so that he would look good to his boss and thus he could be seen as top dog. Yet, he told me that the more he tried to sabotage his coworker the more negative reports he received. He was baffled that he was getting so many. He had bragged once about what he was doing to some people and perhaps the word got out. After hearing this, it was clear to me what his dream meant. In his dream the rat represented himself. And the lion represented his coworker. Sitting on the Lion's paw represented him stepping on his coworkers toes. And the lion devouring him represented the law of Karma that every time he would mess with the guy he would get twice as much grief. I explained to him that by seeing himself as a rat he felt guilty for the unethical way he was trying to get ahead. I explained to him that the dream was his logical self telling him that when you mess with someone you get back twice what you give. And his logical mind was telling his jealous mind that the way to stop the negative reports on himself was to stop writing them about others. Walla!!! He was extremely grateful for this new insight and he decided he would try and get ahead the right way instead of the immoral way. A couple weeks later he told me the negative reports on him stopped and the boss promoted him. In this way, I believe dreams are useful. You can logically interpret and analyze these dreams to get information about yourself and to learn important life lessons. Unfortunately this author doesn't approach dreams from this way. Rather than approach dreams from a logical way, he chooses to approach it as some mystical hocus pocus magical garbage. Therefore, though I believe dreams are useful, I cannot recommend this book.

I really enjoyed what this book had to offer. It was written for the average person to understand and with the reader in mind at all times. I especially liked his descriptive telling of the dreams. Chapter 3: The Night of the Valley of Shadows what especially well written and interesting. I've already let half of my office read it and they've all enjoyed it. I'm buying several for friends and family for Chistmas. I highly recommend this book to people of all ages. Sincerely Harvey.

It couldn't have been a better example of an inspirational book. This book changed me in such a way that is moving. My wife and I have a better relationship because she doesn't think I'm crazy anymore because of my dreams. I highly recommend this book.