It was about how two people struggle while in Louisiana City. They move to a bay and thier life is hard at firs. It showed how two people can find their place in life!

This is a fantastic historical atlas. I have a collection of dozens of historical atlases and the quality is not always high. Too often topical historical "atlases" have too few actual maps -- most of which are just reprinted from earlier historical atlases.

"The Penguin Atlas of British & Irish History" is the exact opposite. There's an original full-color map on every page. The atlas covers the whole length of British history from the Ice Age to the Chunnel. The maps are very well made and detailed, alternating between overviews of the whole of the British Isles and close-ups of particular cities, regions, and topics. One particularly nice touch is original panoramic reconstructions of historic sites including: Roman-era London, Viking-era York, Medieval Norwich, Tudor-era London, 18th-century Dublin and Edinburgh, 19th-century Manchester, and contemporary London...

It's been a while since I read this book. Though I'm a self-help junkie, and it's good to stop reading and start doing, it's also good to have a fundamental list of your favorites that you re-read once or twice a year. This book is on my re-read list, along with TRLT by Scott Peck, and Resurrection by Neville. What I can remember about the book is how the author, especially Danny likens the challenge of their past careers to grabbing your life and just doing it. One thing that sticks in my mind is how he says that it just ain't enough to post a picture of your dream house on the fridge. You really have to take action to get it.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. While suitable for adults, it will also be enjoyable by older children (say Junior High and High School age kids). It has a lot of illustrations and provides a lot of information.

This is the first serious novel I ever read. (Before that I was only reading Doctor Who tie-in's.) After seeing the BBC adaptation on TV I wanted to read this book. I got it when I was 11 and have cherished it ever since. This was the book that made John Wyndham famous: the overnight destruction of civilization by "comet debris", the world overrun by flesh-eating plants called triffids.

One could look at this book as a war between man and nature on a grand scale. When mankind was the species that dominated all others, nature was driven back, "suppressed", or killed in the name of progress. When the tables are suddenly turned, it looks as if mankind is in decline. As the years pass, dead cities are slowly disappearing, turning into jungles as nature takes hold. In a matter of time nature will take over completely and the triffids will be the new inheritors. Unless the human race can fight back and reassert itself.

I have lost count of how many times I have read this book. I am 23 and the story is just as effective now as it was when I first read it. I like seeing all the different cover artwork that people have done for this book. The fact that it's been reprinted so many times is proof that this novel shows no sign of losing its popularity.

I've obtained that book from my father. I've thought it's an ordinary book as many others as I've taken it in my hands, but it was a mistake...When I've opened it and begun to read, I wasn't able to stop. I hadn't to eat or drink - a reading was all that I've needed. I was taken into the story I was in the book, my world obtained a new dimension. It was wonderful...What everything would happen, when something " in the sky " will destroy. A few lights, a few beautifull lights on the sky and - all men are blind. Almost all... Some of them survived wihout a damege of eyes, because they didn't see that strange light - stroke of luck. One of them is our hero. He was at the hospital in sake of his eyes at that time. Once, when he wake up, he found out that something is wrong, something about the people all around him. - People gone blind ! - In this way begins his story..., he goes throgh the city and he see a lot of unhappy blind people, which try to get somewhere, which try to do something. A new world begins... A world with only one right - the right of the stranger. A blind people will die and all of them who are alive wants only one - to stay alive another day. It's bad, a many people are bad, at's stange. In this time we can see who is who - everything best and worst will rise up from deep inside of human. It's interesting to see it. And that is not all - a special kind of living form, something between a plant and animal, which is able to kill - such a creature begines to go among the people and it kills them. People which stayed alive and want to stay alive have to be together. They are able to resist only in this way and it's hard. A many different people with various kind of behavour and the alliens - the Triffids -. /.../ This book is not serious only, it's humorous too. You have to read it, because it's not possible to write as good this book really is. You will see, you haven't feel such intensive experience anytime before...

John Wyndham was the pseudonym of John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (1903-1969). This novel is regarded as one of the classics of science fiction literature and was made into a film in 1963 (poorly made). The book was runnerup for the 1952 International Fantasy Award. It is one of the classic examples of the "disaster novel;" or, more specifically, the sub-genre referred to as the "cozy catastrophe" in which a world-wide disaster is depicted in such a manner that the reader doesn't feel too upset and roots for the main character to overcome all odds. This novel set the pattern for many later novels of other authors: a disaster occurs, a large city is depopulated, panic develops, bravery is seen in the main characters, and a small core of individuals strive to build a foundation from which mankind can reestablish his position. (The synopsis given above with the publisher's comments is wrong. Wyndham is not the father of the disaster nove. There were several prior to 1951.) In this particular story, a series of green showers from a comet's tail (we are later told that this may have been a weapon in orbit that had been accidentally set off by an Earth government) cause most of Earth's inhabitants to become blind. Only the few who didn't see the showers (such as the main character Bill Mason who was in a hospital) can see. Later, a plague (possibly originating from a biological weapon) kills many survivors. But, the main malevolent force in the novel are the triffids: carniverous plants that can walk. Bill Mason believes these plants to have been genetically engineered by the Soviet Union and were accidentally released. Now that mankind is blind, the triffids "day" has come. The word "triffid," first used in this novel, has even gotten into the English language as a term describing any malevolent or obnoxious plant.

Ask for the recipe of these poems. Take the plain-spoken disclosure of the Confessionalists, pour into the informed line-sense of the Formalists, season with wit, secret love of the Metaphysical poets, & serve. Phillips doesn't ask that you do extensive background checks on his references, though he does allow himself familiarities with Miss Moore of the tricorner hat, icons of New York City's literary past, & other remarks which may challenge some reader's sense of easy access. Not to fear. If this is the first book you read that introduces you to the world of high literary comradery, you couldn't ask for a nicer host.

phillips has put together a great collection of poems, full of humor and the sense of craft of the formalist poets. it's full of so many great poems i can't begin to list them all.

During Robert Kennedy's campaign for the American presidency in 1968 he would sometimes disappear from the wild crowds and sit alone for hours on end. When aides would ask what he was thinking about, he would reply, "Just thinking about Jack."

The relationship between the two brothers, and the dynamic political partnership it generated, was one of the most important in American politics.

This is the subject of Richard Mahoney's Sons and Brothers. But the book also documents their father Joe's relationship with the corrupt worlds of the mafia, the labour unions and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

Although the research is copious, there are no revelations. The author draws on the work and ideas of conspiracy kings Anthony Summers (The Arrogance of Power) and Seymour Hersh (The Dark Side of Camelot), while the controversial movie director Oliver Stone gets a thank you in the acknowledgments.

While they were growing up, John and Robert were not particularly close. After the death of their older brother, Joe jnr, during World War II (and sister Kathleen a few years later) the family's political prospects rested with John. The brothers' relationship became close: Robert managed John's 1952 Senate campaign, his ill-fated bid for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1956 and his run for the presidency in 1960.

Following the Kennedy win, the new president - and his father - wanted Robert as attorney-general. Robert protested but in the end John's desire for someone he could trust won out. Anticipating criticism over the appointment, John explained to the press: "I can't see that it's wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practise law."

Robert was an activist attorney-general, tackling problems like the civil rights movement, the mafia underworld and the corruption endemic in many of the labour unions. He was also included in all the administration's important decisions; his access to and influence over his brother was unmatched.

After hearing for the first time that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile sites in Cuba, it was his brother that the president immediately summoned to the White House. In the ensuing days of the crisis, Robert played an integral role in securing a peaceful outcome.

But the darker side of the brothers' lives is also examined. Mahoney uses FBI reports to describe John's and his father's numerous sexual escapades, and claims that Robert strayed only once with Marilyn Monroe.

The Kennedy connection to the mob is not a new allegation, but Mahoney emphasises its depth: in the 1960 presidential election, for example, he explains how the Kennedys used the Mob already a major financial contributor to falsify ballots and buy votes.

In addition, he claims that Democratic Party bosses in Chicago and New York "periodically received briefcases full of campaign money" from Joe in return for political favours. A portrait emerges of a father and his two sons negotiating their way through American politics to power, using their connections with Hollywood, the mafia, the unions and party bosses to achieve their ambition.

Conscious of Machiavelli's dictum that men "seldom or never advance themselves from a small beginning to any great height except by fraud or force", Joe Kennedy knew that the price for power was a moral one. John went along with the dictum while Robert resisted it.

Mahoney's overarching theme builds to a climax through the nexus he develops between the Kennedys, the mafia and the CIA. Essentially, his thesis is that the mafia grew resentful of Robert's pursuit of it; that anti-Castro Cubans were frustrated with the administration's apparent detente with Cuba in the wake of the missile crisis; and that the CIA had a contract with the mafia to assassinate Castro.

He suggests that the CIA hired mafia figure and Kennedy acquaintance Johnny Rosselli to assassinate the Cuban leader, and that both John and Robert approved of the arrangement.

Mahoney writes that it was the Kennedys' pursuit of Castro that led Cuba to seek protection from the Soviet Union, which eventually led to the crisis and the showdown between Kennedy and the Soviet leader Khrushchev.

Robert was deeply traumatised by John's death. Mahoney describes him as "like a widowed spouse" who was paralysed by grief. He was haunted by the idea that he himself had contributed to the murder of his brother, given his pursuit of Castro, the mafia and his bad relations with Hoover.

Robert's rising political star had been hitched to his brother's; but under Lyndon Johnson's presidency, he became an outsider.

Tortured by his brother's death and their unfulfilled legacy, Robert ran successfully for the Senate in 1964 and later for the presidency in 1968. He became a fierce critic of the Johnson administration's policies on Vietnam, civil rights and poverty.

Sons and Brothers is well written and documented but the author does not discuss in depth the nature of the brothers' personal relationship beyond the politics. John and Robert's iconic status was enhanced by their sudden and violent deaths. Their lives are now frozen in time remembered for the dream of what they might have been.

As Robert exited through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel after claiming victory in the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, he was gunned down. Lying on the floor losing consciousness, his last words to an aide were, "Jack, Jack."

* This review was published in The Sydney Morning Herald

This book is a tragedy, in the Greek sense of the word. Richard Mahoney, through the most rigorous scholarly work, transcends the "facts", put you in a corner with overwhelming lucidity and leaves you there, in despair, as a witness of the inevitability of the Kennedy brothers' (Jack and Bobby) destiny. All the components of the human quest for power and its consequences are masterly described and explained. The primordial driving force in this saga is the political ambition of the "Ambassador" (Joe Kennedy Sr.). This ambition is materialized with the tribal subordination of his offspring, their soldierly attachment, and their father's unscrupulous disregard for the "means" to obtain his goals. The Presidency of the United States, the ultimate prize, turns into the sacrificial stone for Jack and Bobby Kennedy. The reading of this book gives an overall sense of the flow of history in general, the big picture. However, the details that make this story are precise and well documented. The author takes the reader in a rather exciting journey from the arid zones of the legal chasing of criminals, to the exploration of their most dark motives. From the grandiosity of historical moments such as John Kennedy's decision not to launch an air strike against Cuba, probably avoiding with this the annihilation of most of humanity, to the abyss of his self-defeating extramarital sexual encounters that crudely exposed him to the spears of his enemies. One by one the different components of the fatal trap fall into place and the unavoidable occurs: The faith of the hero(s) fatally concludes.

After the background is set, the drama unfolds. The John Kennedy's campaign for the Presidency can be viewed as the planting of the mortiferous seeds that will grow into the misfortune or Jack and Bobby. The role of the Mafia and corrupt union leaders at the solicitation of Joe Kennedy is undeniable. During the Presidency of John Kennedy, Robert is appointed Attorney General of The United States, the zealous catholic altar boy launch a campaign against evil forces that are threatening the very fiber of America: the mobsters, the Mafia, and the CIA and FBI officials hostages of criminals through blackmail. The international front offers a discouraging view; Communism appears to be at the offensive and winning, with Cuba as its latest conquest. The anti-Communist crusade creates its own demons, it's a dirty war and it requires dirty alliances against Castro. The inexperience and miscalculations of John Kennedy lead him to the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs and the almost armageddonic Cuban nuclear missiles crisis. This crisis puts John Kennedy at a higher plane of understanding; it is the survival of humanity what is at stake. He needs to re-think the approach to the opposing super-power, compromise is the only solution, and this compromise mandates the abandonment of the Cuban cause. This divorce from the reactionary forces reigning within and outside the government at this historical period sealed his martyrdom.

The description of "Bobby alone" is epic. The different pressures, psychological and social, that determined his faith are exposed. Psychologically, his apparent sense of guilt for the death of his brother, and socially, pressure from the forgotten Americans: the poor American families receiving body bags from Vietnam, the black population struggling to put an end to segregation, the migratory farm workers fighting against mediaeval working conditions, native Americans extinguishing in Indian reservations, the growing rebellion of the American youth. The masses are demanding change and they appear to have adopted a new champion. Robert is now free from his father and brother ghosts. He embarks in a quasi-mystical mission for change. The exercise of power that he proposes has been progressively and dangerously transformed into a tool of social change. Robert Kennedy's candidacy for the presidency of the United States was a frontal assault on the very same forces that murdered his brother, and he consciously accepted his destiny. The California primary win gave the green light to the wolf pack to go for the kill. At the end, little room is left for doubt or speculation. Rosselli, Giancana, Marcelo, Oswald, Sirham, Hoover, Ruby, Johnson, and the many others mentioned in the book, come together in a murderous constellation. The reader can draw the connecting lines between the "stars" as he or she wishes, the ultimate result will be the same: The Kennedy brothers' destiny was sealed: Saturn has devoured his own children.

The literary quotes and fragments of poetry depicted in the book were of great interest to me. It was like having a minuscule sample of the precious fuel that kept the Kennedy's intellectual flames alive, and how these flames where amplified and exposed to the masses of this country in the form of a collective dream. Probably the sudden destruction of this dream, of this promise, explains to certain extent the unresolved collective trauma of the Kennedy brothers' assassination.

I highly recommend this book for its historical and literary merits.

I thought I knew everything there is to know about the Kennedys but this book took me to a new place. Other versions tell one of two stories: the Kennedy brothers were great or they were terrible. This tells a different story, a clasic tragedy. Because they did terrible things to achieve wealth and power, the Kennedys had to pay the price just when they (particularly Bobby) were on the brink of doing good things for the country and the world. The anguish of Bobby is right out of literature. He (and old man Joe) were the Kennedys most guilty of making deals with the devil -- and JFK may have paid for his dad's and Bobby's sins with his life -- and he was also the one determined to do good after 11/22/63. Tortured by guilt, he reached out to heal those hurting, rather than inflict hurt as he had in the past. But the past caught up with him and killed him.Terribly sad.An incredibly good book: the best on the Kennedys.

I found this work diary of Steinbeck to be far less informative than I had imagined it would be. Aside from his daily ruminations that he was unsure if "Grapes" would be a good book, there was little revealed as to his creative process. How did he create his characters? Why did he use certain plot devices? Where did his inspirations come from? All this was lacking.

If you read Christopher Tolkien's works on his father's "Lord of the Rings," you see the work created before you. You can see how a character developed, how a plot changed. In "Working Days" there is none of that. It is simply repetitive admonitions to himself to work harder. It became tedious and a great many times I wondered if the editor had simply repeated previous entries and only changed their number.

"Working Days" is interesting, but don't be fooled into thinking you are going to be there at the birth of a great novel.

If you enjoyed reading Grapes of Wrath, or any other books by Steinbeck...get this book. If you want to follow a writer through the process of creating an important novel, get this book. The daily journal entries written by Steinbeck show the ebb and flow of his moods, his confidence that he was indeed writing a great book, and those days when he felt that he lacked the talent to pull it off. It is rare to get the opportunity to watch an artist create....this is pretty darn close. And a good read!

Working Days is for Steinbeck readers or any student of creative processes and habits of successful people. John Steinbeck wrote the beefy The Grapes of Wrath like a freight train, averaging 2,000 words a day in longhand, from June through October, 1938. He did not do this in isolation. He got up an average of five days a week, had breakfast, wrote in his journal, then went to work until early evening, while hammers from neighborhood construction pounded relentlessly, amid human intrusions of all kinds, a souring stomach and self doubt. He was a purposeful journal-keeper, using it to set the goals for the day, to talk himself into character development and plot movement. No doubt the journal also served to subconsiously swat away the distractions so he could focus on the work. Working Days is edited by Robert Demott who has seemingly devoted his career to the meticulous scrutiny of Steinbeck's life, works and habits. If there can be a criticism of this volume, it's that Demott hovers too much; his is, for instance, one of the longest critical introductions I've come across. But this does not detract from the enjoyment of crawling around in Steinbeck's mind, which the journal freely permits.

Despite frequent consideration of the wisdom tradition in the Hebrew scriptures in recent years, there is still a redoubtable incertitude about the nature of wisdom writings as they relate to the larger intellectual traditions of the ancient near east cultures in general and about their influence on the Hebrew scriptures as a whole. In this festschrift for noted ancient near east Wisdom literature specialist John Adney Emerton, these problems are methodically promoted, assessed and appraised by an international assortment of specialists. In addition to full coverage of the wisdom books and other literature most frequently considered to have been affected by them, thematic studies also introduce the principal comparative sources among Israel's neighbors and discuss the place of wisdom in Israelite religion, theology and society. Each essay contains a useful survey of relevant recent studies, and the many fresh insights offered by the contributors will make this volume necessary to students and scholars alike. The essays include: Introduction by John Day, Robert P. Gordon, And H. G. M. Williamson Part I The ancient near eastern setting Egyptian wisdom literature, J. D. Ray, Reader in Egyptology, University of Cambridge Some new Babylonian wisdom literature, W G. Lambert, Emeritus Professor of Assyriology, University of Birmingham The Wisdom of Ahiqar, Jonas C. Greenfield, Late Professor of Ancient Semitic Languages, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Part 2: Old Testament and Apocryphal texts Foreign Semitic influence on the wisdom of Israel and its appropriation in the book of Proverbs, John Day, Lecturer in Old Testament, University of Oxford The limits of theodicy as a theme of the book of Job by E. W. Nicholson, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford Qoheleth, Otto Kaiser, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, University of Marburg/Lahn A house divided: wisdom in Old Testament narrative traditions, Robert P. Gordon, Lecturer in Divinity, University of Cambridge Wisdom in Solomonic historiography, Andre Le Maire, Directeur d'etudes, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Histoire et Philologie, Paris-Sorbonne Amos and wisdom, I. A. Soggin, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Waldensian Faculty, Rome Hosea and the wisdom tradition: dependence and independence, A. A. MacIntosh, Dean of St. John's College, Cambridge Isaiah and the wise, H. G. M. Williamson, Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Oxford Jeremiah and the wise. William McKane, Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages, University of St. Andrews The wisdom psalms, R. N. Whybray, Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament, University of Hull Wisdom and Daniel, B. A. Mastin, Senior lecturer in Biblical Studies, University College of North Wales, Bangor Ecclesiasticus: a tract for the times, John C. Snaith, Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic, University of Cambridge The Christian use and the Jewish origins of the Wisdom of Solomon, William Horbury, Lecturer in Divinity, University of Cambridge Part 3 Themes Were there schools in ancient Israel? G. I . Davis, Reader in Old Testament Studies, University of Cambridge The trees, the beasts and the birds: fables, parables and allegories in the Old Testament, Kevin J. Cathcart, Professor of Near Eastern Languages, University College, Dublin The personification of Wisdom, Roland E. Murphy, George Washington Ivey Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies, Duke University, North Carolina Wisdom and the goddess, Judith M. Hadley, Assistant Professor of Old Testament, University of Villanova, Pennsylvania Wisdom at Qumran, A. S. Van Der Woude, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament and Intertestamental Studies, University of' Groningen The interpretation of wisdom in nineteenth-century scholarship Rudolf Smend, Professor of Old Testament, University of Gottingen, R E. Clements, Emeritus Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament Studies, King's College, University of London Biographical note: John Adney Emerton Bibliography of the works of John Adney Emerton Karen K. Maticich Indexes