In "Sauron Defeated", Christopher Tolkien brings to a close "The History of The Lord of the Rings", a subset within his "The History of Middle Earth". Like the previous three volumes in this series, Christopher traces the development of his father's thought as the final chapters of The Lord of the Rings are written. Of special interest are the early conceptions of "The Scouring of the Shire" and the two versions of the never-published "Epilogue". The Epilogue was, to me, particularly touching, as it involved Sam, now a middle-aged hobbit with a houseful of kids, reading to his family and keeping the Story alive.

HOWEVER, the above material, while unable to fit into the previous volume (The War of the Ring), was not enough to warrent a volume all by itself. So Christopher has also included "The Notion Club Papers" -- a space/time/dream travel story, written at the same time as The Lord of the Rings was being developed. The story itself involves Numenor -- Tolkien's telling of the Atlantis saga. Of particular interest to CS Lewis fans, "The Notion Club Papers" purports to be a discussion of (among other things) Lewis' own space travel fiction, penned in the late 30's and early 40's. It's a shame that this story was never brought to completion -- I'm finding the ideas it expresses to be quite interesting.

Again, 5 stars, both for the Master, and for the tireless work of Christopher.

In the ninth volume of The History of Middle Earth and the last dealing with LOTR Christopher Tolkien gives us not only the original ending to Tolien's epic trilogy, but also an essay called the Notion Club Papers, an edition of the Drowning Of Anadune, and information on Adunaic which was one of Tolkien's invented languages. I liked this book very much even though the Notion Club was hard to read at times. Thankfully, this is the last edition dealing with LOTR and Tolkien soon turns again to his father's greatest work, The Silmarillion. I recommend this book to any Tolkien fan.

The title of this book should say it all. Certainly a book designed for die-hard Tolkien fans, 'Sauron Defeated' hardly represents interesting reading for people unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings series. That said, the thick volume is still essential for anyone who has read the previous three chapters of the History. Although some parts of 'Sauron Defeated' are better off left out in its next edition, it presents enough interesting information in its 482 pages to make it a worthwhile (not to mention impressive) presence in your Tolkien library.

My 4 1/2 year old son loves this story. He seems to feel the same tension and then exuberance experienced by the little dog facing a daunting maneuver. I love the story and pictures as well,especially as a change from the fire truck, dinosaur and baseball books that we usually read. It is one of the longest stories he listens to intently. Highly recommended

This wonderfully illustrated book tells a simple story of a great man and a very courageous dog he knew in Alaska. I suggest this title for all dog lovers, no matter what their ages. Note: Amazon lists the reading level as 4-8 years, and I believe that four year olds can certainly listen to the story, but the independent reading level would be much higher. Don't miss it, though. You will always remember Stickeen. He and John Muir were certainly brave out on that glacier!

Besides being a beautiful book to look at, this lively account of John Muir's glacial wanderings with his loyal four-legged companion, Stickeen, is an artfully presented, exciting read! Dog lovers, nature lovers, and all adventurers at heart are sure to enjoy following these two on their perilous journey across the ice.

I have been reading tarot cards (without the books) for about a year now, and I must say this is the best deck! It's pictures are all closely related to the Rider-Waite deck so it's easy to read. My favorite card has to be THE MOON with the walrus and the carpenter "deceiving" the oysters, very cute!

This deck is a Rider-Waite-Smith variant, with the cards redrawn with art from the Alice books.

The art is as beutiful as that of the book, and as the deck is based on RWS, anyone familiar with the former can read with this deck with no effort at all.

The suits of the minor arcana were changed, as noted in a previous review, which personally I find a little confusing.

The deck is made in high quality, with the regular exception of the cardbox, which is a pitty - it's worth keeping for the art's sake.

As an Alice fan and being familiar with the RWS deck, I really like this deck.

I dont read for kids (and I think I would prefer to read with the Inner Child Cards for kids), this deck is reserved for readings in parties and other merry situations.

This is my first deck and I highly recommend it for beginners or those with children. The pictures are based, of course, on the illustrations by Sir J Tenniel from the original Alice books. If you've read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (and you really should), you'll gain a far better insight into the cards as well. A lovely deck that may be too precious to use for public readings. Excellent for personal use!

This is a wonderful book for parents who would like to use herbal remedies, but don't know where to start. Dr. Christopher's book is simple and interesting to read. He offers information on cause of disease and how to avoid it, wonderful information on nutrition, an alphabetical list of common childhood aliments with herbal remedies, and a section on how to's i.e. how to make an herbal tea, a fomentation, and a poltice and more. I love this book, I find myself turning to it time and time again!

This is an excellent reference volume of natural health care for both children and adults. It lists diseases in convenient alphabetical orderwith consise definitions, symptom desscriptions, causes and herbal aids. Other natural tratments are outlined, including the cold sheet treatment, the incurables program, detoxification and the mucusless diet. A book for every family.

This is an essential for any parent who cares to treat their children naturally. It gives formulas and recipies on how to help with common colds and uncommon diseases.

Dr. Steidle's ability to communicate the answers [to questions often diffucult to state] is incredible. This is information that my not be used today, but needed in the future. He covers all bases.

The book uses termnology that is easy to follow. It makes for interesting and informative reading of impotence.

this is a thoughtful and easy to read discussion to help you navigate the the current stream of information on impotence. The best review I have ever seen.

There are really no adequate adjectives to label this work. This breakthrough work of art is a fantastic challenge to all historians that ever dared to whisper the word Columbus in their thoughts. It is obvious that the so-called professional historian community is not going to like what Barreto explains with extraordinary detail because they would only be achknowledging their own ignorance. There is a multibillion dollar industry living under the myth of a Genoese Columbus and offering false documents to prove it. There are books based on those false documents written by people with "a name" in the historian community begging the public to perpetuate the lie because in all honesty, they can't sleep at night with their hard pillow filled with corrupted cash. To date no historian has successfully challenged Mr. Barreto's arguments. Why? I tell you why. Because Mr. Barreto is most probably right and all those Samuel Morisons out there will die first before they admit to it.

The amazing investigative work of Barreto proves Columbus was (1) a spy, (2) Portuguese (NOT Italian), and (3) JEWISH! Barreto breaks the secret code of Columbus' signature and exposes the explorer's covert life. The book is filled with history, adventure, politics, and intrigue. THE MISSION: To foil Spain's quest for India. THE REWARD: Discovery of a New World and Portugal's rise as a global power. The author examines the circumstances which led to the oppression of Jews in Europe, and how this forced secrecy gave Columbus the opportunity to become one of the greatest covert agents in history. The discoveries in this book are so astounding, one wonders why this book is not getting greater attention. This book is intensely satisfying. The amount of information in the book is so vast, you have to read it more than once; but you'll love every minute of it!

I found the theses presented in this book fascinating and very thoroughly argued. Much of the evidence is very convincing. Some has been available before, but a great deal is new, specially the part on decyphering the cabalistic signature. I am puzzled by the lack of response from the history experts.

Whether you have children or not Buy this book. If you have children read them the landscape poetry in here. They will sing them in their sleep. It will take them on magical journeys to happy places and you also.

I just started browsing through a book of his poems in spanish one day and loved them, but my spanish is marginal. This has the spanish poems side by side with english translations, many of which I don't really like because they do things like switch words and lines and take a little too much freedom and change the spirit of the poem, but that's okay. You can read the spanish, read the english, and see exactly what has been changed, but the beauty is in the spanish ones, and though his vocabulary is large, yours doesn't really have to be to appreciate the sound and sight of these poems in spanish. I love many of the sonnets, plus the king of harlem, which reminds me of HCE from Finnegans Wake, this character that becomes the landscape itself, "after walking", and many others from the poet in new york. I've just been getting into some spanish poets after reading some st john of the cross and seeing what types of flows and life can be infused into words in this language, and these dark, bloody grimy oozes of language have had me high for weeks.

Brilliant, emotions of positive and negative are tasted in this work

I find myself using this book quite often as a reference.Well written and easy to use. Good textbook.

Dr.Fuhr has compiled one of, if not the most, comprehensive and professionally written text in the field of Chiropractic. With the support of clinical data, Activator Methods succeeds in producing a text to promulgate it's clinically substatiated Chiropractic Technique.

I didn't care about the red herrings the investigators were following. I just wanted to know what Boyce was really doing. So I read only those parts of the book. Those parts were quite interesting.

I picked this book up in a used book store, and read it in less than a day. I couldnot put it down! At first, I almost felt sorry for Christopher Boyce, but once he started robbing banks to support himself, forget about it. I wonder if today, in July of 2000, if he is still as bitter towards both the government and the CIA

Great! I am 15 and have just discovered this great book. My mother had owned it it was about my uncle Duke Smith. Duke his nick name. the book was great a must to read.

I'm not a big poetry buff but Qabbani just grabbed me. He's an amazing poet who spills his heart throughout this book.

So powerful, so sensual, so incredible. His poetry is earth shaking and primal.

Don't let the fact that his words have been translated from their original Arabic dissuade you from believing that somehow the work isn't as honest as it should be. Qabbani's work is so powerful it hardly matter shwat language it is in. In short, easily read dollops of wit measured out with a voice of quiet urging, he has given us work that transcends time and politics, while being above-it-all.

"If you know a man
who loves you more than I
guide me to him
so I may first congratulate
hom on his constancy
and later, kill him."

If poetry ever had a Luther Vandross, it was Pablo Neruda. If it ever had a Barry White, it was Qabbani.