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I found the one theme, intended or not, that makes this a favourite is that many components of the various recipes are interchangeable. For example, there is a great recipe for a lobster and mango/baby spinach salad. I was shopping for ingredients and found the lobster sub-par, so I managed to substitute his marinated tuna recipe in with great success. Same goes with recipes for various pureed sauces and soups. And particularly useful are discussions on the best of seasonal ingredients (notwithstanding that many may not be available to the average cook due to cost, or geographical limitations)
Overall, a top notch book and highly recommended.
By first inspection, I imagined this was another of those letdowns. Beautiful photos, seasonal recipe organization,and what appeared to be bland style recipes.
But upon trying several, this book delivers Trotter's assessment: purity and elegance. Although tried only Cauliflower and Sorrel Soup, Tomato And Parmesan Gratinee Tarts and Duck Breasts with Endive Tarts, this food is elegant and tastes are clean, distinct and so, so satisfying.
Anxious to explore this hot London cook even more.
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Smyth does a thorough yet concise job on the known varieties of written Greek usage from the Homeric epics up to the beginning of the Hellenistic period .
Smyth does not cover Hellenistic (Koiné) Greek as much, especially not for texts that have Semitic or Egyptian "flavors:" the Septuagint, New Testament and Egyptian Greek papyri. For real grammars on those, look up these authors: Wallace, Dana, Mantey, Robertson, Blass, Debrunner, Funk, Conybeare, Stock and Zerwick.
Some writers in the centuries between the reigns of Augustus and Constantine, and the Byzantines afterward, tried to "return" to Classical Attic usage in writing, with mixed results. When reading them, use both Smyth and a Hellenistic/Koiné grammar together, carefully.
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This is not because of what Gordon does with Shakespeare's characters from Twelfth Night, but because of how he uses history. Early thirteenth century Constantinople is brought to life, and the idea of a Jesters Guild continues to be a clever and original plot device.
I'll be eager to read the third book in the series, as the Fourth Crusade approaches Constantinople.
What has happened is murder. Someone has killed all of the Jesters in Constantinople in an attempt to hide a plot to kill the Emperor. Theophilos has to find out who, why, and then decide if the world would be better off with a new Emperor.
Gordon does a wonderful job describing Medieval Europe and the role played by the Byzantine Empire at this time. The concept of a Jesters' Guild is wonderful and just believable enough to make the plot more enjoyable. Better is Gordon's character development. Both Theophilos and Viola are fully characterized, likable, and motivated. They may be fools, but they're no dummies and they're a joy to see in action...
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This book is absolutely perfect for children. Each state is consisely laid out in an easy-to-read format that is loaded with information. The drawings are also excellent in peppering the pages to break up all of the details.
This is a type of hands-on book that challanges children to learn about their country in fifty educationally-fun geography lessons. This book gives its readers a lesson in human spirit by teaching a little bit about America's past, while imploring everyone to partake in it's future. This book is a must read for children.
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What I recommend is this: Get yourself Stefán Einarsson's fine book, "Icelandic: Grammar, Texts, Glossary", which is set up in lessons for the beginner and which you can get real cheap here at Amazon. That book is modern Icelandic, so the readings aren't about Egill SkallagrÃmsson or Snorri's Edda, but not only is the Old Norse spirit very much alive in modern Iceland (and all the people very familiar with the old stories), but the language has changed extraordinarily little in the last thousand years (very very minor things), so that if you learn modern Icelandic even reasonably well (which you will from Einarsson), you can easily pick up the sagas with no problem.
Then, when you've finished with his book, you can get Gordon, which will be much more enjoyable then. Alternatively, you can get the texts of lots of the sagas online from Icelandic sites and get hardcopy English versions here at Amazon to use as "ponies". (Hrafnkels saga is a good one to start with, or Snorra Edda.) Good luck!
After a brief introduction to Scandinavian history, the Viking expansion, and saga literature, the author gives about 160 pages of West Norse, normalized into classical Icelandic. Most of the selections are from the sagas, and they are well annotated, and a full vocabulary is included in the back of the book. There is also a section on what he calls "East Norse" (the Old Norse particular to Denmark, Norway and Sweden), and a small section dealing with the language of the runic inscriptions.
There is a 40 or 50 page section where he presents the grammar, but it's more along the lines of an outline of the grammar. It's sufficient for someone who already has a good knowledge of Old English, OHG, or Gothic, but my hat's off to anyone with the determination to acquire a reading knowledge of the language from this grammatical sketch alone.
There's the rub: where DO you get the introduction to Old Icelandic that will enable you to use this book with benefit? The superb learning grammar "Old Icelandic: an Introductory Course" by Valfells and Cathey is out of print. Kenneth Chapman wrote "Graded Readings and Exercises in Old Icelandic" about 35 years ago, but that's disappeared as well. Until either of those works is reprinted, or a new introduction is written, it's going to be tough.
But none of this is meant to take anything away from Gordon's work; it's a wonderful, scholarly work. Problem is, you really do need to have something of a background before you use it.
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Having exegeted the great bulk of the Pauline Epistles, Fee then feels able to make some observations and conclusions about Paul's general pneumatology in the last 100 pages of this nearly 1000 page book. He concludes that the Spirit was for Paul more real and evident than we can possibly imagine in our day and age, that the presence of the Spirit was an assumed reality, because of which specific theological discussion is limited. But in the off hand remarks, asides, benedictions, and other such casual comments Gordon Fee is able to discover and lay out eight primary conclusions about Pauline pneumatology. These conclusions are not meant as simply academic points of interest, but are in keeping with Fee's profound pastoral sensitivity and seek to point out ways in which the modern church can regain some of the liveliness and fullness that is found in Paul's understanding of the Holy Spirit. If you don't care about the exegesis (though as a reference I can't imagine not caring) Fee has another book called Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God which consists of just his conclusions and insights.