The book tells us about what happened to John F Kennedy during World War two, how the Japanese sank his boat, so how he became a hero. There is a short biography( 1917-1940) too, with cute photos. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. I suggest it to all Jack Kennedy fans or not.

Dr. Ballard lives in Lyme Connecticut, 10 miles from where I live. I saw this book in a local bookstore window this weekend, and realized that he was coming to town in 4 days to speak on the subject. Being a history buff, and certainly a Kennedy history buff, I bought the book (locally, so that he would sign it for free!), and read it last night. It's a short read, with only one or two chapters covering the actual exploration for the PT-109. The rest of the book contains Kennedy family history dating back to the Kennedy's in Boston from 1850. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. There was also nice information on the crash that proves that the Hollywood movie on PT-109 took some liberties concerning his rescue of marines on a beach ... go figure ... Hollywood taking liberties...

The bottom line ... I believe Ballard has found the PT boat ... even though he couldn't quite prove it ... The fact a future president's boat was lost in this region has left a closeness with the locals towards the United States ... and the two local's that discovered Kennedy and his crew are still alive and still very much influenced by their part in history. This will be Ballard's last modern historical ship find ... after this he will move on to work on the Black Sea project ... I'm glad he found John Kennedy's boat before he moved on. Read the book

Dr. Ballard lives in Lyme Connecticut, 10 miles from where I live. I saw this book in a local bookstore window this weekend, and realized that he was coming to town in 4 days to speak on the subject. Being a history buff, and certainly a Kennedy history buff, I bought the book (locally, so that he would sign it for free!), and read it last night. It's a short read, with only one or two chapters covering the actual exploration for the PT-109. The rest of the book contains Kennedy family history dating back to the Kennedy's in Boston from 1850. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. There was also nice information on the crash that proves that the Hollywood movie on PT-109 took some liberties concerning his rescue of marines on a beach ... go figure ... Hollywood taking liberties...

The bottom line ... I believe Ballard has found the PT boat ... even though he couldn't quite prove it ... The fact a future president's boat was lost in this region has left a closeness with the locals towards the United States ... and the two local's that discovered Kennedy and his crew are still alive and still very much influenced by their part in history. This will be Ballard's last modern historical ship find ... after this he will move on to work on the Black Sea project ... I'm glad he found John Kennedy's boat before he moved on. Read the book.

My only real complaint relates to something entirely outside the author's control: the price. Put simply, this book is darned expensive. But my recommendation to potential readers is: bite the bullet and shell out the dollars. THE BOOK IS WORTH IT!

Professor Ballard (who used to be a colleague in my own institution, but is now in the US again, I'm told) has based his book on a solid bedrock of French primary sources, few of them consulted by scholars before, and all of them used responsibly and creatively by Ballard.

Ballard's analysis is consequently sound and very convincing. I learned a great deal about life in revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and gained many unique insights into the way an 'ordinary' literate and cultivated Frenchman -- who just wanted to get on with life despite the chaos and instability that plagued his nation before Napoleon took power and the far greater degree of governmental interference after he did -- saw and understood the turmultuous events of his era.

The book's uniqueness lies in the fact that, by tracing one man's life throughout the entire period, it demonstrates the constantly evolving nature of the ideas, policies and practices that emerged and shaped French society.

The prose is clear and engaging, and helps to enliven what might at first glance seem an unimportant story about a man of no great repute. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and would recommend it without reservation to all readers, including French history specialists and the "lay" readers like myself.

This is an adventure novel featuring MacBurnie King, an American teenager, on a life-changing journey to India. It combines a worthy message with a gripping story and appealing characters. MacBurnie persuades her class to adopt an Indian child through an agency to end world hunger, and for months she and the class exchange letters and photos with a woman named Lori working with this little boy and others like him in the Indian countryside. Then a letter from Lori comes saying that the little boy is no longer with them and they don't know where he is. This spurs MacBurnie to travel to India herself to find the little boy. From here the novel is a fast-moving adventure for MacBurnie and the reader to see first the wealth and sophistication of Indian urban life, then the unbelievable poverty of village life, with its lack of medical services, flood and drought, suffering and death. To see this from the viewpoint of the courageous and compassionate MacBurnie helps readers get some notion of the meaning of hunger and suffering in the context of a completely different culture than their own. There is enough adventure and romance to please the most reluctant reader. This novel is introduced by Mother Teresa and The Gandhi Foundation, and celebrities such as Nelson Mandela, Coretta Scott King, and Janet Jackson praise the series in the first pages, along with endorsements by such organizations as YWCA, UNICEF and Save the Children. Attached to this novel is a nonfiction work entitled India Revealed: The True Roots of Hinduism and Our World's Largest Democracy, filled with b/w photos related to India and encyclopedia-type entries on many aspects of Indian culture.

Claire Rosser, Editor KLIATT