I am sure the authoress has written extensively about Beethoven, but this kind of mass conspiracy theory book is just a product of her imagination. I would commend first a little reding of the facts - contrary to a previous reviewer's claim, Austria was not a "Police State" (read for example Macartney: The Habsburg Empire 1790-1918 and any book on the Austrian police, whose primary role was simply to convey popular views to the Emperor. The Empire was also not a dictatorship as the Emperor was limited extensively by the various assemblies in the provinces. A little reading would certainly go a long way here.
Then of course, there is the little matter of lead. Why was replaced for water carriage and removed from petrol? Funny really, because it is poisonous - lead posioning was a fact of life in those days and Beethoven was as expeosed as anyone. Then the book gets really silly - Napoleon (a real dictator) died of stomach cancer, whatever Ben Weider might think. Easy one this - arsenic only acts as a preservative when applied externally in large quantities and why would reeading from the same head vary by a factor of up to 64? (clue: arsenic was used to preserve keepsake hair in the 19th century). Napoleon II was a sickly child (the Habsburgs in general were not a healthy lot) and died of TB complicated by pneumonia.
Conspiracy theories sell - but all are based on a failure to actually bother to read the substantive background. Most of the material is not accessible to most people because it is written in German and Metternich is a bugbear for Bonapartists who can't accept M outthought Emperor N at the Dresden meeting in 1813. But so what? easy target.
File it under fiction with Weider, Hamilton-Williams, Graham Hancock etc. and anyone else who fails to produce substantive evidence but dresses a few selected pieces of info up to please those who buy this nonsense.

I was a bit skeptical when I read Ms. Altman's hypothesis suggesting that Beethoven had been poisoned. However, the test results are in, and essentially, she was right. Beethoven's system suffered from a massive ingestion of lead. While another researcher (the one with the test results) guesses that Beethoven was poisoned by his dinnerware or (amusingly) by his "lead" pencil, Ms. Altman's premise that the poisoning was deliberate is well researched, fascinating, and quite plausible. Her book reads almost like a "who-done-it" in what she calls "the crime of the (19th) century." It was amazing to me that Ms. Altman deduced Beethoven's poisoning solely on documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts, and without being privy to the tests on his hair.

The reader of these lines already knows from Amazon's book description that the author explores the possibility that Beethoven was "helped to an early grave" by people who were his enemies or people he thought were his friends. The author looks at incidents in the composer's life during the last 17 years of his life in a completely new and fresh way. She shows us that, unbelievable as it is for us today, in much of Viennese society Beethoven was far from popular. In his times, few years after the French revolution, there were great political tensions between the "establishment" on the one side, and revolutionary and republican ideas on the other. Austria was a police state. Like other artists, the great composer was regarded as a threat to status quo, and with good reason: he often expressed ideas that could be seen as a threat to law and order. Emperor Franz I had reason to fear his influence, just as dictators have always feared popular artists. The book is very thrilling, although it is painful to imagine how the great man in long periods may have been tortured to have him silenced. Involved are many subordinate characters and two more main characters: Napoleon Bonaparte and especially his son "The King of Rome", so it must have been quite complicated to compose the structure of the book, but the author has made that very logic. Maybe this is a book for us enthusiasts who know much about Beethoven's life from before. However, the author explains his situation so well that I think any "newcomer" in the field of Beethoven's life will have full pleasure of it even without any such previous knowledge. I have only minor critical comments. In one of the chapters I did not quite follow the author's reasoning, maybe I would not have been confused if she had summed up and given her conclusion to that chapter in a more explicit way. In my opinion this is the most interesting book about the Life of Ludwig van Beethoven which has been written for many years.

The author of this book claims a victory for sea control for the British, exagerates damage done to German ships and diminishes those received by British ships. Well, here are some hard facts: Number of ships: German 99; British 159 , Losses: G:11 with 61180 tons Br.:14 with 115025 tons. Personnel losses: G: 2551(6,8%), Br.:6094(11,6% ); Weight of fired shells: German: 85,9 tons , British: 201,1 tons. So, the German fleet sunk about double the battleship tonnage with less than half the metal weight killing more than double the amount of sailors! Now comes the hard question: where is the claimed British victory just somewhat smaller than Nelson's. It must be because I am dumb and German that I can't see it. In fact after the battle the British surface fleet controlled absolutly nothing in the region of Deutsche Bucht to Denmark where however the German fleet did make massive sorties out of this region! And there seemed to be no willingnes whatsoever on the British side to risk their battleships in pitched battle again. So, which sides' moral was dented? Even the best maps and photos couldn't make a book good when it trys to declare victory from defeat because of the author's nationality. So this may be just a good book if you are a: English or b: have at least one other book about the subject for comparison (and you want the good maps and pictures).

I found this book very informative and enjoyable. It reflects the British point of view, containing many facts, details and anecdotes, just what I had hoped for. The battle itself is somewhat confusing, but the excellent maps the book provides are a big help in following that portion of the story. I did note an apparent color coding error on the first battle map, but the editing is nowhere near the sloppy job done on one of the other books in the series.

As to bias, this is what an intelligent reader expects in such an endeavor. One seeks it when it does not adversely affect the inclusion of all of the facts. The reader easily copes with biased conclusions and the excessive of biased adjectives when they appear. One expects a British author to conclude that Britain won the battle. Probably her population as accepts this as fact, as the Germans also believe that they won the battle. Victory is often controversial, especially to the non-professional reader. Again the experienced reader, with the facts in hand, will draw his own (biased?) conclusion. That is part of the fun!

As to Jutland, one may award the victory according to his personal judgment. Historically, of course, it is generally considered that the tactical victor is the side that retains the battlefield.

Here, I think the world has agreed, the strategic victory belongs to Britain, as she obtained her major objectives, while Germany's surface fleet remained merely a psychological threat restricting, to some extent the use of the British home fleet.

I recommend this book as enjoyable reading to anyone with an interest in the subject.

Author Charles London has set himself a difficult task: to write a 96-page campaign summary of the controversial Battle of Jutland in 1916. This was the only major clash of dreadnought battleships before aircraft changed naval warfare, but its uniqueness and inconclusive results provide ample fodder for competing interpretations.

On the whole, this volume repesents one of the very best of the Osprey Campaign series. The maps are excellent, and provide much better depictions of the action than the sketch maps usually provided in much lengthier works. The strategic level map on page 32 which depicts the opening moves is one of the best I have seen, including locations of all U-Boats and British submarines (unfortunately he did leave out Zeppelin patrol areas). Both the photographs and artwork are of excellent quality. This volume is a valuable visual companion to John Campbell's technical Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting, which lacks photos and decent maps.

On the negative side, the author is rather blatantly biased toward the British. There is little or no mention of significant damage to British dreadnoughts, including the seven hits on HMS Malaya, the six hits on HMS Barham and the torpedo hit on HMS Marlborough (all three of which had close calls with sinking). On the other hand, damage to German ships is sometimes exaggerated; such as when the author claims that three German pre-dreadnoughts were hit when in fact, two were hit by one shell each (minor damage) and the third suffered one sailor killed from a shell splinter. The author alludes to the German advantage in night fighting but fails to mention that they had starshells, while the British did not.

The author makes selective use of the vast technical data available on Jutland. He notes that both sides gunnery was about the same - 3% probability of hits and that the various advantages and defects of their ship designs canceled each other out. In fact, the British obtained 2.75% hits of rounds fired versus 3.39% for the Germans. In the initial battlecruiser action, the German edge was even more lop-sided: the Germans scored 44 hits versus only 17 hits for the numerically-superior British.

Organizationally, this volume would have done better to provide strict time delimiters, to break the action into phases. Instead, the author uses the "flow" style, which gets very confusing after the initial battlecruiser action. The maps help to sort out the battle, but the text does not. One wonders also why the author included photographs of the Goeben, and ships sunk in the Falklands Battle two years prior to Jutland, but no photos of several major ships such as the Lutzow and Pommerm which were sunk there.

Finally, the author seems somewhat unsatisfied with the indecisive conclusion of Jutland, as everyone always seems to be, except perhaps the Germans. The author uses the fact that the Grand Fleet "remained on the battlefield" the next morning to claim a victory for sea control and assert that Jellicoe would have won any follow-up engagement off the Horn Reef. Here the author's bias ignores the fact that the Grand Fleet had lost all cohesion after twelve hours of fighting; most of the destroyers were separated in the night action and three dreadnoughts had wandered off 45 miles away from the main body. Certainly Jellicoe had the strength to finish off any German cripples, but any renewed battle would have witnessed a thoroughly-spread out Grand Fleet fighting in minimal visibility conditions. Any action on 1 June would likely have been a scaled-down repeat of the previous day: ships blundering into each other in the haze and quick, furtive exchanges of gun fire. More ships might have been sunk, but without radar, air support, better navigation and improved communications, the clash of dreadnoughts could not be decisive in 1916.

Despite the author's bias and certain errors, this volume is still a valuable adjunct to any Jutland collection. Just remember to keep other works handy to sort out the omissions.

Although it is of much help, to which the book lacks, it was disappointing to say the least. It did little to help simplify the understanding of the book; yet without it, one is much worse. If one needs to take trigonometry, this book will attempt to help, but lacks in great assistance.

Like all math books, this one is just an aid in the classroom. The main source of information is the instructor. This book has really good excersices. The layout is very clear clear. Dont listen to negative reviews, its probably their instructors

I bought the book to teach my 15 year old
son trigonometry and it is fantastic.
It has so many clear examples to illustrate
the concepts.
You can't go wrong with this book.

I look forward to each new Bertrice Small book with extreme anticipation. I have especially enjoyed reading the continuing saga of the O'Malley family. However, since the original character Skye has died, her decendents have become quite boring (as compared to her). They no longer have the adventrues that Skye herself once did. I was especially disappointed that Fortune never did find out that Rory was her real father. That would have been reminisent of the Skye legacy.

With each new book, I find myself to be in less of a hurry to buy the book. I do hope that if Bertrice Small does continue with the series Skye's Legacy, she puts a bit more zest into the stories.

I agree with the previous reviews. While Besieged was not as good as The Kadin or Skye O'Mally (these are my favorite books of all time), it seemed truer to the legacy of Madame Skye. Her last few books, while enjoyable, were not her best. Additionally, Jasmine and Jamie Leslie were much better in this than their last book with daughter India. I, too, wished Fortune could some how discover that Rory was her father. Alas, I can see where that would have tormented Jasmine's memory of her beloved second husband. I enjoyed the references to the New World and would have found more of their building of a new life in Mary's Land more interesting than that silly kidnapping. I'm really hoping we get a wonderful new book from Ms Small about Autumn Rose. After all, she has the blood of both Cyra Hafise (Janet Leslie) and Skye O'Malley running in her. Now that's a Legacy!

I have just started reading Bertrice Small recently and started with the Skye O'Malley series. I have enjoyed this family series. I get hooked on all the family and eagerly await each new book to see what this active, adventurous family is doing. There is not a huge amount of references to Skye's many other kids and their activities in this book. But it is still well done. You could very easily pick up this book and read it without having read the rest of this series (however I recommend that you do so.) The history details are always very well done and interesting. Ms. Small has taken her readers to Ireland and the New World this time. The O'Malley clan will soon be worldwide. Fortune is every bit like the free spirited women in her family and wants to find that passionate, true love. Her mother and father have gotten their backbone back in this book. It was refreshing to see Jasmine to take a stand again. The only thing that I did not like was the Kidnapping scene. It seemed incomplete or maybe a last minute thought (not very well developed.) The book could stand alone without that scene. I look forward to seeing a mention of Fortune and more family moving to the New World as the colonies expand.

Charles Barkley is a riot, and I think he has a lot of good ideas that, once polished, will make him a fine politician someday, in the event he feels like heading in that direction. Furthermore, I think he would make a great Republican candidate, which the country needs more of from the black community. Barkley toys with Right side in "I May Be Wrong...," pretty much because, looking around the spot where he grew up (when he's back in town), he can't help but notice that all those years of Democrat promises and vows to shape things up in urban communities haven't changed much of anything.

Barkley is a gracious lover of the game of basketball, too, and pays clear and respectful homage to his forefathers. He mentions how a lot of the up-and-comers don't have the respect for their elders that they need to succeed in sports, and in life. Barkley clearly paid attention to guys like Moses Malone and Dr. J., recognizing that they had a lot of wisdom to impart to a young guy, on and off the court. Barkley comments on some of today's players, both young and old, but does so (for the most part) with courtesy and without finger-pointing. He is adult enough not to slam Scottie Pippen, despite the fact that Pippen has stabbed Barkley and others in the back.

His thoughts on race relations in this country are all over the map, and register more misses than hits. Barkley is interested in the subject and phenomenon of race, but hasn't honed his arguments or feelings to laser-like (or even shotgun-like) accuracy. He complains that black actors are often given non-mainstream roles such as pimps and whores in Hollywood, even though those roles are the customary "non-traditional" ones that whites win Oscars with (Elizabeth Shue in "Leaving Las Vegas," for instance). He blames a lot of ills on the rich in this country, without any accountability on the part of the poor, like when he treats credit card companies as part of a conspiracy to trap the lower classes in a financial hole they can't climb out of. Barkley pontificates about double standards between black and white athletes and celebrities, and yet conspicuously omits from the debate the single greatest example of an athlete getting away with murder in this country's history (O.J., of course).

But most importantly, and the worst part of this book, is that there is nothing outrageous about it whatsoever. Despite its being pitched as a no-holds-barred, tell it like it is missive and social commentary (including in the book's prologue), there is nothing said that's more controversial than that Michael Jordan is a cheapskate. All in all, this is a nice autobiographical sketch of Sir Charles that doesn't really excite, and certainly doesn't deliver on its hinted theme of "I told you so."

With the help of sportswriter Michael Wilbon, Charles Barkley is able to put together a book that rambles through
his thoughts and opinions on just about everything. But for a man like Charles Barkley, that works out just fine.

Never known for pulling punches, Barkley speaks on everything from growing up poor to life now rich, raising
kids, taking responsibility for one's actions, and of course politics in America. It pretty much what you would expect
from a personality like Charles Barkley. A good, but not spectacular book.

Like many other professional sports today, professional basketball has its fair share of colorful, wild, and notorious players. However, thought to be one of the most controversial players in any sport, Charles Barkley personifies the unique and highly opinionated sports figure. I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It, by Charles Barkley, is an amazing autobiography, not only of the star's life on the basketball court, but of Barkley's opinions, goals, struggles, and triumphs in the real world.

I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It is a story of the career and personal life of one of the most talented basketball players to ever set foot in the NBA. Still noted as one of the only players, along with Wilt Chamberlain, to "total more than 23,000 points, 12,000 rebounds, and 4,000 assists," this sports legend now expresses his opinions, not by playing the game he was so talented at, but through his present position as a TNT sports commentator. As quoted by the book, "There's nothing Charles Barkley shies away from here-not race, not class, not big money, not scandal, not politics, not personalities, nothing."

Barkley infrequently utilizes literary devices. However, the author employs very personal and unique language that not only keeps the reader interested, but also enables the reader to feel as if he has known Barkley for a long time.

I thought I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It was an incredible autobiography. Although highly opinionated and in some instances controversial, this book is a must read for any sports fan. The book lacks a definite theme, but its purpose is to present the life of one of the most intelligent minds in all of sports today and the opinions and ideas that have molded this man into the "character" he is today.

Not bad, but if you were really looking for some real knowledge of Lewis' teaching style this isn't it...it's pleasant reading, but not terribly informative. Also, it does not show the complete Lewis character. Based on sources at Oxford, the real C.S. Lewis was impersonal (even by British academic standards) with some of his students, and could be withering to those whom he felt were not terribly bright or motivated.

I've always been a bit surprised and suspicious of the C. S. Lewis industry: the fact that I like reading Lewis, doesn't mean I like reading about him. (Though, if push comes to shove, I have to admit I do. Just no slobbering, please.) Fortunately this is a collection of essays by colleagues, students, and friends of Lewis who, even while writing about Lewis, have other things on their minds -- the purpose of English teaching, Oxford, redemption, even (in the gardener's case) his own bad jokes. There are even a few critical stories. Most of the essays are well written and insightful, and gave plenty of Boswell-like anecdotes not only of Lewis, but of other peculiar denizens of Oxford as well. Graham could have saved himself the occasional bone thrown to evangelicals, though, as far as I'm concerned. I really don't care how Bob Jones reconciles the work of the Holy Spirit and beer. Billy Graham and J. I. Packer didn't seem to have much to say. Also, the editor protested a bit too much about "hero worship." There's no need to apologize for this book, otherwise.

The book arrived in the mail on Friday afternoon. By Saturday afternoon I was chewing on crumbs.

To me, one of the most interest comments was the suggestion by one writer that Lewis had been influenced by the marvellous chapter "The Ethics of Elfland" in G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. I am beginning to suspect that Wilhelm Grimm was a very clever, and also successful, evangelist, and that there might be a secret link between the Seven Dwarves and Trumpkin.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

This was an engaging read, but ultimately a little disappointing as it didn't really give a clear picture of the people Mingus was involved with throughout his life. Mingus himself comes through clear enough (though even here, the reasons for his breakdown in the late 60s are still a little mysterious), but consider someone like Eric Dolphy. A major figure in the history of jazz, and someone who was important enough to Mingus that he named his son after him, but Santoro doesn't give us much of a sense of who Eric Dolphy was. He doesn't even tell us how he died. The same is true of other figures like Booker Ervin, Jaki Byard, and so on. If you're a jazz fan coming to this book hoping to learn more about these guys and how they worked with Mingus to create all that amazing music, you're going to come away no more enlightened than when you started.

Santoro does get a little hung up on extraneous financial details at the expense of giving a clear sense of these human characters. He also gives some pretty pat and unnecessary capsules of the history of the times through which Mingus lived. (Do we really need anyone to tell us that the 60s were a time of upheaval?) The research shows, but at times he doesn't seem to have fully digested all this material, and he is reduced to quoting Mingus's tax bills and throwing around some fairly meaningless refrains like "He was feeling the zeitgeist again" or "He was his father's son." 2 stars don't seem like quite enough, but 3 seems a little generous. In default of a 2.5 star option, it will do. Oh well.

Was it David Sedaris (author of Me Talk Pretty One day) that said he won't date anyone who uses the word Zeitgeist? Too many times this word gets used in this book. I think this book still deserves to be read, especially along with _Beneath the underdog_ written by Mingus himself. I thought in terms of Jazz history, this book does better than _Miles_ for example. This kind of book is written out of love, and we should be thankful for Mr. Santoro's efforts. I did not know much about Mingus' life, and it gives me different insight into his world when I listen to his music now.

Contrary to the other reviewers, I thought that this was an excellent book. The author places Mingus in the context of the pop culture of the 1940's through the first half of the 1970's. He relates Mingus's life to other major jazz musicians, the Beat generation poets and icons, popular music, the chi chi movers and shakers, big city life, jazz clubs, fusion, wives, jazz festivals, periods of violent acting out and self destruction, etc. This book is a cultural history (probably why the other critics didn't like it) of the middle of the 20th century. He does make a few obvious errors. For example, the distance from Monterey to Berkeley is about half of the 200 miles he maintains. It's not Camarillo State Prison, but Camarillo State Hospital where Parker was hospitalized (a big difference). He was about a year off when talking about the release of Kind of Blue. He also overworked the term "noodling". On the other hand, if you are interested in jazz history in the context of the middle of the 20th century and a very interesting look a Mingus's life, this is a great place to start.

I hear www.wargamer.com will soon have a full review of this title. They also have many other reviews, previews and analysis articles of military history.

Ghost Front is a fascinating, if somewhat esoteric, view of the events that led up to the Battle of the Bulge. The intelligence failure of the Allies, or more precise, the pure blindness they suffered from, caused tens of thousands of needless casualties on both sides of the line.

Charles Whiting does a good job of portraying information that is not easily found in other sources, but his grammatical style has errors and doesn't flow very well in places, making reading this book less enjoyable than it should be.

I thought I would get an explanation of why the Allied air forces could not discern the buildup in the Ardennes. But Whiting does not offer an explanation. Instead he focuses on the mismash of intelligence failures. But, you don't get to know any of the characters very well. Plus, from a writing perspective, Whiting has to many long, disconnected subclauses that are difficult to comprehend. Finally, he repeats himself often. Don't pay full price for this book. It is not essential to your WWII collection!

Charles Whiting's book, Ghost Front: The Ardennes Before the Battle of the Bulge" is an interesting, if brief, examination of the Allied failure to see the German Ardennes offensive of 1944 coming before it happened. Other reviews have stated that Whiting provides no real insight as to why this happened, and in the end analysis there is some truth in that - many of the facts surrounding this huge intelligence faux pas remain obscured and possibly lost forever to time. However, in contrast to some other reviews I found Whiting's explanations of the events quite compelling and enlightening. Granted no single fault was found with Allied intelligence to place blame on, but that was why the Bulge occurred - no single event, but rather a series of events lead up to the Ardennes offensive and the German surprise. Whiting in my opinion does a decent job introducing many of the significant intelligence characters of the period, both Allied and Nazi. I found the stories of the German counter-intelligence ploys most interesting and enlightening, as these are sides of the story not often told. While there is certainly enough new material here to keep one interested I tend to agree with previous reviews that Whiting's style is a bit difficult at first, but I got used to it. I read the book over a three-day period (mainly while traveling for a business trip) and can say that in the end I really enjoyed the book. Yet, it's shortness (~160 pages) made it not quite worth full market price when all the criticisms discussed above are taken into account. I would however not dissuade readers from taking a look at other works by Whiting.

I usually like Grodin on TV and elsewhere. I have not read any of his other books so I have no basis for comparison there.
But...this book SUCKS! So boring. The jacket promises all sorts of "hard-hitting" and shocking revelations but the book is mainly comprised of Grodin's musings and mental meanderings. He goes to great pains to remind us time and again that he is considered "dangerous" by producers and network honchos, that everyone holds their breath when Grodin speaks because you never know what kind of politically incorrect, terrible truth he's going to utter. However, we all know that Grodin is a moderately talented, generally pleasant, relatively intelligent and articulate, and above all NICE guy. And this book does nothing to dispel that notion. He simply recounts a few anecdotes from his career and otherwise justs jots down his random thoughts. Just read his post-September-11th postscript to see what I mean.
There is just nothing there. No trenchant commentary. No patriotism or anything searching for an answer as to why this happened. Just garbage - "that pile of rubble used to be the Marriott", "there was smoke in the air", a mild jab at Bill O'Reilly that comes out of nowhere and means nothing, I mean, you don't have to buy this book to hear this kind of obvious pablum.
Where in God's name was the editor's critical faculties when he read this .. "the weirdest moment in the Simpson saga came when a defense expert was called and his name was Grodin!". This is page 79. First of all, note the exclamation point! Exclamation points should be used sparingly! And they should be used to underscore information that is truly noteworthy!This little coincidence just isn't really mind-blowing, is it?!!!
But forget the punctuation. Is this little coincidence, which no one else but Charles and his mother noticed, really the weirdest thing for Grodin that happened during that saga? Not the bloody gloves, not Simpson's book "I want to tell you", not Fuhrman's
videotapes or F. Lee Bailey's cross-examination of Fuhrman, not Faye Resnick or Kato or Henry Lee's testimony which was destroyed by the prosecution, none of this was weirder than a witness with the name Grodin? I just mention this because Grodin made his name as a talk-show personality with his show that dealt with the Simpson trial, and the thing that fascinated him the most was that his name matched that of a witness. It's a good thing Charles' last name isn't Smith. He'd walk around in a state of perpetual wonderment and disbelief.
If that isn't enough stupidity for one book, the transcripts of talk show banter featuring Grodin and some unfortunate guest or interviewer are more boring and useless than watching your toenails grow.
Grodin so desperately wants to be "edgy" and "dangerous", but there's nothing in this book to even remotely suggest that he's anything more than an avuncular milquetoast who slapped together this pitiful book in order to make a few house payments.
Stay away from this book. Unless you love every single thing you read, including stop signs and cereal boxes, you will probably hate it.
Here's an appropriate exclamation point for you, Charles. I want my money back!

This is light, fast reading and a fun book. Grodin seldom names names, but he gives many examples of cantankerous behavior within show biz people in tv and the big screen. I now want to read other books he has written. I enjoyed his work in the movies, but never watched him on tv until he went with CBS. His humor fits well with 60 minutes II.

I found Mr. Grodin's latest book fairly interesting. I am the opposite of Mr. Grodin politically, but I still enjoy all of his work, and that includes this book.

This book is an outstanding account of the bureaucratic goings on in the development and test flying of the X-1 (XS-1). It is not an easy book to read, nor particularly enjoyable, unless your needs include a very in-depth and tedious account of the meetings, memos, and political struggles between agencies in the XS-1 program. Light reading, it is definitely not.

This book covers the struggle between the Army/Air Force, Bell Manufacturing and the NACA (predecessor of NASA) in the creation of the X-1, the first plane to break the sound barrier. It is a marvellous story of the engineering decisions made not by any one of those agencies, but in cooperation with all of them. For one who wants to learn why Edwards Air Force Base was chosen over the Florida base to test the new development planes, or why the civilian pilot in charge of testing was replaced by Chuck Yeager in the latter stages of testing the X-1, or why NACA was at such odds with the other entities over test procedures/schedules, and the existence of the various X-1 'copies' and who owned and tested them ... the answers are here.

Learn a little about the D-558-I, which used a jet propulsion engine which is the mother of our modern jet aircraft (the X-1 used rocket power, not jet power). Why do our modern military fighters use a jet engine, not a rocket engine for propulsion ?

The accidents and near accidents, including fires, loss of pressurization, flight instability, and such are discussed with an analysis of what might have caused them, and steps taken to prevent reoccurences.

The book covers in fine detail the technical issues involved in designing and building the planes. The administration of the entire program is spelled out with names and memos which brings to life the heated arguments and disagreements arising in building a machine many thought was merely a death machine, sure to kill every pilot who attempted to break the barrier.

Of lasting impression on me, was the realization that the designers, manufacturers, and pilot testers of these planes were in their twenties. The head of the NACA team in charge of the X-1 project (for NACA) was 29 years old (or so). Those working for him were even younger. Of particular interest to me is the role of my father (John Gardner) who was part of the NACA team. He was 25 years old in 1947. Their counterparts at Bell were of similiar age.

The week I bought this book I was visiting Edwards AFB. I got a chance to tour the base, experiencing the climate 51 years to the day since the sound barrier was broken, and view the surrounding terrain and landscape. It certainly added to my interest in reading the book.