37 years ago in high school English class we were challenged to read The Cruel Sea. I have never forgotten the flaming seas, the U-boats hiding under floating survivors, the cruel consequences of war, the noble Captain, the obnoxious crewman with his mouth of insults I had to ask my mother what they meant. A young girl, age 16, never read a war story, loved this book and never forgot it.

The Cruel Sea is perhaps the finest novel written out of World War II. It is drawn on the actual service in the Royal Navy of the author. It is the story of two ships, maybe 200 men, German submarines and the constant relentless ocean. Even when there is no combat action, the sea is always there in all its forms - just waiting for a small defect to occurr and then it will claim another victim - be it man or ship.

The sailors of the Compass Rose are a dramatic cross section. The captain is a reservist from the merchant navy while his officers are all volunteers from the civilian sector. One officer's only sea going experience is crossing the channel in a small yacht with a one woman crew. Not the best of material.

The crew is even more diverse. The senior ratings, coxswain, signalman, engineer and several others, are all professional Royal Navy and it is one these men the captain will lean the most. The remainder of the crew is drawn from all walks of life from clerks to vet assistants. Together they are all molded into a working crew.

The contacts with the German submarines are numerous but the end result is disappointing to some in that only two submarines are sunk between the two ships. Lots of survivors are pulled from the sea though as the submarines whittle away at the convoys chugging across the sea.

One gets a sense of the unending grind that the men endure as the ships make thier rounds from Liverpool to New York with a side trip to Russia for variety. Even shore time is not enjoyed as the local Liverpool area is pounded by German bombers and wives and girlfriends are not willing to endure the constant seperation.

Compass Rose is sunk and the crew, once more, is held together by the captain. Some men are heros and die a heros death and others are simply freightened men trying to stay alive which few do. It is a sobering time for the survivors as they look back at their life in Compass Rose.

The captain and one officer move on to another ship and finish the war in her. Again, it is a return to the grind of fighting the sea and occassionally fighting the Germans. One submarine is sunk by the new ship and the war ends.

There is little glory to be earned in this story, rather it is a tale of survival, hanging on to make it through the day or night. Everyone is a hero in this story from the junior sailor to the captain. It is a story that is being remembered less and less as the survivors of World War II diminish in numbers. It is a story to be read and remembered - when there was no array of electronic weapons and nuclear energy to draw upon to destroy an enemy; rather it was skill, patience, persistance and a willingness to endure that saw a successful outcome from a combat between corvette and submarine. Sometimes the corvette won and sometimes the submarine won. Many times it was a draw.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the war at sea during World War II. It should be in every naval officer's personal library regardless of nationality. Once read, it should never be forgotten.

The late Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea (originally published in 1951) is a powerful and riveting novel of maritime endurance and daring set in the North Atlantic during World War II. Carefully scripted and written, the reader is drawn into this story of the British ships Compass Rose and Saltash, and their desperate cat-and-mouse game on the high seas with Nazi U-boats. This fine trade paperback edition from Burford Books will introduce a whole new generation of action/adventure enthusiasts to a truly skilled and engaging writer whose ability to involve the reader from first page to last is rarely equaled and never surpassed.

I am writing this on March 14th, 1998 - the ninth anniversary of the passing of Cactus Ed. This novel is the most satisfying of Ed,s books. It fills in so much about his life that his non-fiction essays only hinted at. Plus, it's a damn good story. I have all of Ed,s books, all first-editions and most autographed by Ed. I cherish my autographed first edition copy of Fools Progress more than any of my many books. Ah me, today I am sad thinking about Ed. I want to thank him again for all his writings, but especially for his " Fat Masterpiece", The Fools Progress. I would love to read the unedited manuscript for this book; the final product is only half as long as the entire story he wanted to tell.

Edward Abbey died in March of 1989. In the latter part of 1988, he saw his last and perhaps most accomplished work brought to bed at his publishers in New York. The author of many highly controversial works of fiction and non-fiction, best known for his seemingly solitary stand against the ecological destruction of the western American deserts, Abbey's last book effectively completed a cycle. At the same time it was a very close foretelling of his own probable doom.

Abbey was an environmentalist from the beginning. In the East of his youth, he saw strip mines close in on his father's mountain acres. Out West, he witnessed the early preparations being made to dam the Colorado and its tributaries. He rafted down Glen Canyon and saw the hidden valleys filled with a beauty that was soon after to be engulfed. He smelt out the tricky political deals being woven by senators and landowners in the forgotten tracts of the butte country and did his best to expose them. Against all of the attempts to tame this corner of the American wilderness, Abbey railed.

In books ranging from "Desert Solitaire" (1967), a journal of a season in the desert, to "The Monkey Wrench Gang" (1975), an explosive novel of saboteurs versus dambuilders, Abbey argues his points in favour of preserving the canyon country. Having been there "before" and "after," his voice has a compelling authority. To read his account of Glen Canyon before the dam is to be filled with regret at the later spoliation.

In "The Fool's Progress," Abbey gives us something of a summing up of his own life. The book is like a reverse history of Kerouac's "On the Road." Instead of youth rushing out through the length of America to meet its new and cosmic identity on the West Coast, here is a life which is wearing down, attacked from within, going back from the desert to the Appalachian hills of birth and ancestry. In the chronicle of the winding down, as the truck begins to fail and a mortal pain begins to rise, boyhood is measured against the actual experience of the now hard-bitten adult.

"The Fool's Progress" is the work of a now accomplished writer in his prime. We might have expected much more from Edward Abbey and his early death is a great loss. Nevertheless, his completed works stand on their own and I can recommend them to anyone who is intrigued by the workings of an original mind as it tackles the problems of our age.

No one I have ever read has had as much justifiable contempt for the unnatural "society" humankind has fashioned for its self as does Edward Abbey. Abbey at the same time exhibits a passion for human existence as it relates to a true appreciation for the natural world and its implacable laws. The Fools Progress will, with every turn of the page, cause you to examine and question your own pursuit of material ends. Abbey's corresponding use of first person and narrative writing techniques lend an even greater sense of passion and conviction to his already bold writing style. This is a book that posesses the potential to change your life. Buy it, read it, enjoy it and appreciate it for the rest of your life!

In 1987 while living in Haines,Alaska;I asked the librarian for a good book. I wanted something like Little House on the Prairie kind of story. She handed me Little Britches. I took it home and read the most wonderful adventure of a boy, growing up and learning lessons in life. It touched my heart so deeply I felt I knew him. I returned to the library after I had finished reading the book and asked if he had written any other's. The library owned one other book by Ralph Moody and that was Man of the Family. It was checked out,and not due in for two weeks. I put in a request and waited anxiously. When I finally was able to read it, it was just as wonderful as the first. To my delight Mr. Moody had written many books of his childhood. I have six children who love me to read these stories to them. Of all the books I have ever read, I must say by far that Ralph Moody's Little Britches is my all time favorite book.

I read my first book by Ralph Moody, "The fields of home" when I was 8, on my fathers recomendation. He told me that the story reminded him of he and his father, but after reading it I saw more of my dad and myself; rather than father and grandfather. A couple of years ago a friend told me of these great books he had bought, and said that he would loan them to me, once I saw the author I had to purchace the set for myself. I read these books at least once a year, and there hasn't been a time when they dont bring a warm feeling to my heart, and bring a feeling of kinship to Ralph and his family with its rural heritage. If the kids of today cared half as much for family as Ralph does for his, today would be a much better place.

Little Britches is the sort of book that you wish could be made available to every man, woman and child in today's mixed up world. It is wonderfully inspirational and would go a long way toward making you think about what is really important in life and how you ought to go about being the best kind of human being that you could be. I have re-read the entire Little Britches series for the last 20-plus years and just recently ordered the entire set from Amazon.com. I am thrilled to think that they are still in print and I look forward to many years of enjoyable re-reading of them again. Do yourself a favor and buy Ralph Moody's books. He had tremendous insight about life and living. He would undoubtedly be the kind of man we'd all like to know, be friends with, have as a dad, husband, brother etc. You'll love his books. You'll laugh and cry and be transported back into a wonderful time of life. You'll be left with some great new thoughts and feelings about what really matters after all.

This is a very realistic account of a year in the lives of one shift of homicide detectives written by a newspaper reporter that reads as well as fiction. You are right there at the crime scenes with the primary detectives when they roll the body over looking for clues, when they interview the witnesses, fill out the paperwork and go out for drinks after work when the board is changed from red to black, signifying the case has been closed. You can get a real appreciation as to what it is like to be an underpaid, underappreciated and overworked homicide investigator in a major city. Interrrogation techniques are revealed in this unique book. Some trial action. Definitely worth the read. Contains real life violence. A good companion to the TV show.

Put down your police procedural murder mysteries. I don't care who wrote them because they are all fiction. If you want the REAL story, this is it. I couldn't put this book down. Every scintillating fact and detail of the killing streets of Baltimore, Maryland, as experienced by its Homicide Division in the Police Department is recounted here. The people in this book are all real and they are so well set forth that you will feel as if you live or work with them yourself. I felt as if I were the reporter on assignment with them for a year. This book was also a big award winner, as it should have been. In a curious way, by book's end, you are saying two contradictory statements to yourself. (1) How do these police people stand doing this kind of work day in and day out and (2) I can understand that the work is so fascinating that it is easy for it to utterly absorb and involve you, taking over your life. The rest of us lead incredibly dull lives compared to the homicide detectives of the BPD!

This book follows a year with the Baltimore Police Deparment Homicide Unit. This is a thoroughly riveting novel which manages to allow you to emphathise with the detectives featured as they investigate cases ranging from the straightforward to the impossible. It describes the procedures and obstacles faced in bringing a felon to trial. I urge all crime fiction readers to read this book if they read any nonfiction, it's a bit heavy going in places but it's worth it (beware - you'll be able to see huge holes in your fictional detectives investigations afterwards!)

Herbert Werner with Mr. Beach's help has written one of the most detailed, engrossing naratives of combat that I have ever read. Werner served on U-boats as an officer throughout most of the war, becoming a U-boat commander in '44. Though highly detailed the book reads almost like a novel it is that interesting. His descriptions of depth charge attacks will have you breaking out in a cold sweat. By mid '43 U-boats faced a huge challenge just getting out to open sea. Werner describes his time spent in ports in great detail as well. Overall the book provides the reader with a picture of what WW2 sub warfare is all about and what life as an officer in Hitler's Germany was like.

I first read this book over 20 years ago and it is one of those books I can just re-read periodically My initial impression of it's overall excellence still remains. Highly recomended.

This is the very best book I have read actually describing the conditions inside a German u-boat during World War II Atlantic Ocean war patrols. It is well written with both action and information in mind. The action standpoint is superb and makes the reader wonder how Capt Werner and his crew ever survived the punishment they took in their little fragile "egg" as aircraft and ships constantly dropped bombs and depth charges on them. From the information standpoint, Werner gives us a very comprehensive and interesting description of what it is like inside the early u-boats. It is hard to imagine how the crew lived like they did in their constantly rocking boat: without bathing for months, eating moldy food, suffering from constant humidity, freezing or roasting as the season might be (no airconditioning or heaters), and not having proper sanitary conditions (using a bucket in rough seas, etc.) Very good detail on u-boat life both aboard ship and in port. From another information standpoint, Werner gives us a good description of what average Germans were thinking as the war progressed, what sort of damage ordinary citizens were taking as the war proceeded in depth over Germany both from the heavy air bombardment plus the advancement of Allied armies from the south, east, and north. Werner is also a "ladies man" so we do hear a lot about the girlfriends in every port, so to speak, plus German submariners' night life in different occupied locations. (They seemed to like France a lot.) It is good that Werner provides you this gamut of information: living inside the boat, dealing with the difficult navy bureaucracy, joys of in-port liberty, his nice but unfortunte family, the Nazi party bother, and so on since it furnishes the reader with a rounded out picture of life during these unusual times. Werner is lucky to have come back alive, and we are fortunate he wrote this book. His family and many of his friends were not so fortunate as the reader will see.

Herbert Werner's book has been printed many times, a testament to its writing and story. Werner joined the German Navy at the outset of World War II, and was able to rise through the ranks fo this extremely dangerous calling to command his own U-Boats by the end of the war. Werner writes his account from a chronological perpsective, from the early, easy successes to the end of the war and the bleak outlook Germany had ahead of them. Key events like the "Happy Time," the sinking of the Bismarck, the Battle of Britain and operation Sea Lion figure in, as do the attacks on Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and the waning days of the war.
Iron Coffins also exudes humanity, finding fault with the Nazi high command and the naval leadership that caused too many losses, weakened morale, and doomed Germany's effort. The title itself refers to Werner's view of the U-boats as floating deathtraps for most of their crews (perentage-wise, German U-boat crews had one of the top positions in any list of potential losses).

Werner was lucky to survive, given his job, and we are luckier still to have his account of U-boat work in World War II.

I love alll of the Anne of Green Gables series. They are so vividly written you find yourself wishing that you were born as Anne a hundered years ago on PE Island. I would have happily endured all her hardships for all the wonderful moments in her life, and the fact she married Gilbert Blythe! It's so well written that you actually feel that you know Gilbert and I actually found my self falling in love with him! I've read the series 2 times. The first time I couldn't stop thinking about Anne. I read Anne, I tried to live like Anne and I dreamt Anne. Anyway, although I love all 8 books almost equally Anne of the Island is just a little better. And although it's romantic it's definitely not just a romance. Anne of the island includes wit and humour that makes it an all-round perfect book. If you're an Anne fan you havvvvvve to read this. I could not describe how wonderful it is in 1000 words. Anne of the Island is truly a book you CANNOT put down. After reading this I recommend you read all the rest of the Anne of Green Gables series (there are 5 more book,) although you'll probably be rushing to buy them anyway.

If you like the Anne of Green Gables series this is the best one in the whole thing! Anne of the Island has something for everyone! Anne Shirley leaves the small town of Avonlea to attend Redmond collage.. There the novel introduces you to a character who is extremely funny named Pricella! (Hope I spelled her name right). In this novel Anne falls in love with a fellow school mate, while her long time friend Gilbert Blythe finds a love interest as well! Do they end up together at last? Read the book and find out! This book is definatly for people who liked the movie "Anne of Avonlea". They are without a doubt slightly similar, but the book is definatly better!

I think that this is my favorite Anne book. I have read it over a hundred times to myself and soon I will need to order a new copy. It tells the ongoing story of Anne Shirley and chronicles her adventures in higher education, friendship, love, and of course WRITING! This is not a childrens' book as some might think. It is very easy to read, but it is for people of all ages. Of course, it features the same Gilbert Blythe who we all know and love as Anne's constant admirer and the irredeemably Sloanish Charlie. She also has Priscilla Grant at her side. She also makes a new friend, Phillippa Gordon, who makes Anne's freshman year wonderful and may someday prove to be quite sensible. In the course of the book, Anne will gain friends and admirers as well as continue to matchmake and write (of Course). She will have her share of joy, tears, loss, and love and ultimately set her course for her life beyond the bend in the road. I learned an important life lesson from this book,you never value what you have until you have lost it. I loved the characterization of all the new characters especially Phillipa, I think that we all know someone like her who attracts men without knowing how or wanting to. I can relate to Anne in this book. This book is thoroughly enjoyable and you not regret reading it. If you still want more Anne after reading this book,you should read all of the other Anne books (the next is Anne of Windy Poplars) and the Chronicles of Avonlea(it includes several stories which include Anne in them: The Hurring of Ludovic, The Winning of Lucinda, etc.) I hope that you will love it as much as I did!

This story appears to be written lightly but it is full of deep thoughts and truths. I picked this up to read about Kings Saul, David and Absalom. Could not put it down. Read straight through. God had me pick this book up to read about the condition of my own heart. Am I as King Saul seeking God's power or King David a man after God's own heart. Gene Edwards truly writes to the heart of brokenness, submission and authority.

I have owned this book for years. The other night God had me to read this book at 11:30 pm. I read the first chapter and I wanted to put it down (it made me weep). Gene Edwards said I know you didn't like that chapter and you won't like the other chapter either. He was right. It showed me of myself. When I read I heard myself saying the same words that I was reading. After each chapter, God said keep reading. This book was awesome. I never looked at David the way he was protrayed in this book. I read the whole book before going to bed. I learned alot about myself, people in church and especially leadership over me. Everyone should read this book.

A must read book!!! Have you yourself found yourself in a chain events that doesn't seem fair? If so read this book! This book is about three kings and what happened to king David, but this book will help to bring insight even working in the world. Me I work for a church, but found that this book will also give you hope in any job that you work in. Ever felt abused, neglected, unheard, or thrown to the side. Find out in this book what to do. It will change your thinking, your responses, and your attitude about people It will help you to become a better person. Our life long attitudes and responses that we have about people will be radically changed thru how we respond to how and what King David went through. We all have authority over us but it is how we respond that will give us out of life what we receive. This book helped me to see and understand people. This book saved me at my deepest darkest hour with people. Helped me to understand who I was! Opened my eyes. A must read book of survival!!

I'm a retired engineer and have recently chosen art as a hobby. I bought several how-to-do-it books including this one. I found Betty Edwards' book interesting and motivating but it hasn't proved to be a significant source in my learning process. Rather, Ferdinand Petrie's book Drawing Landscapes in Pencil and the wonderful books by Lee Hammond have become my tutors. With them I have made surprising progress in drawing. I can highly recommend them to anyone who wants to learn to draw.

Drawing? I can't draw.... With very structred lessons and exerices, this great book takes you through different ways of seeing the world and helps you transfer the new found images to paper. Everyone can draw. You only need to know how to see like an artist and it is extremely simple. I have spent a week reading the book and the improvement is profound. A basic outline of a hand has become a detailed realistic image of my hand. Do I have the new found talent that artists all seem to have? Nope, all I have is this cool book by Betty Edwards that has taught me how to draw like my dad had taught me how to ride my bike. Drawing is a skill that all can learn. You just need the right tools and the right instructions.

In this book, Betty Edwards gives you a in depth study of the function of the brain and the relation between the brain and your artistic abilities. She goes to the extreme saying that all people can draw fairly good where many people who believe they can not draw at all, actualy can be excellent drawing artists. With a doctors degree she realy goes deep into the technical aspects to form a platform for her teaching.

The book is full of illustrations done by her students. What I enjoyed most in this book is the concept of shifting your mind from a left-mode to a right-mode and the exercises she gives to make that possible. Her lecture on shapes and negative spaces also put you in a mind shift making it possible to view everything visible in life in a different way. This book is a stunning book in conjuction with Lee Hammonds book, 'How to draw lifelike portraits from photographs'. Edwards realy opens the strength of your artistic side where Lee Hammond teaches the core facts of HOW to achieve that lifelike likeness. Get both !!

Reporters have been known, now and then, to play fast and loose with the facts to entertain their readers or elevate themselves. This phenomenon is not limited to our own age. For proof, look no further than Lowell Thomas' fanciful volume, With Lawrence in Arabia. In 1917, Thomas was a 25-year-old part-time instructor at Princeton, a "fledgling showman from Ohio who had knocked about North America in search of fame, fortune and adventure," according to historian David Fromkin (A Peace to End All Peace). Thomas then raised enough money to travel to Britain and the Middle East front as a World War I cameraman. With his coverage began the Lawrence of Arabia myth.

Eight copies of Seven Pillars of Wisdom were published by Oxford in 1922 (six still exist). The first limited edition was followed in 1926 with the private publication of 211 copies of the book. In 1935 another limited run was published. But the same year, Seven Pillars was reprinted at least four more times. Now, there have probably been dozens, if not hundreds of printings.

This work assured T. E. Lawrence a place in history as 'Lawrence of Arabia'. It is a military history, colorful epic and lyrical exploration of Lawrence's mind.

Nevertheless, it is largely fiction. Fromkin writes that when poet and scholar Robert Graves proposed to describe the liberation of Damascus in a biography of Lawrence, the subject himself warned Graves, "I was on thin ice when I wrote the Damascus chapter...."

A onetime junior officer in the Cairo Arab Bureau, Lawrence admitted that Seven Pillars of Wisdom included a false tale of Arab bravery to aggrandize the followers of Sharif Hussein of Mecca and his son Feisal. Indeed, as early as 1818, reputable newsmen reported that the Australian Light Horse division liberated Damascus from Ottoman control, not Feisal's Arab troops, who marched in afterwards, for show.

By 1921, Fromkin writes, Winston Churchill was in charge of Britain's Arab policy in Mesopotamia and tapped John Evelyn Shuckburgh to head a new Middle East department and Foreign Office man Hubert Winthrop Young to assist him. They arranged transport and supplies for Feisal's Arab army, earning hearty endorsement from Churchill's Masterson Smith committee, which simultaneously took grave exception to T.E. Lawrence as a proposed Arab affairs adviser. The committee considered Lawrence "not the kind of man fit to easily fit into any official machine."

Fromkin reports that Lawrence was frequently insubordinate, went over his superiors and in 1920 publicly disparaged Britain's Arab policy in the London Sunday Times as being "worse than the Turkish system." He also accused Britain of killing "a yearly average of 100 Arabs to maintain peace." This was of course untrue.

Efraim and Inari Karsh write, in Empires of the Sand, that Lawrence's Damascus victory was "less heroic" than he pretended. Feisal was "engaged in an unabashed exercise in duplicity and none knew this better than Lawrence, who whole heartedly endorsed this illicit adventure and kept most of its contours hidden from his own superiors." Yet Lawrence basked in the limelight Thomas created in London, attending at least five of the showman journalist's lectures.

As an unfortunate result of Lawrence's subterfuge, he had a large hand in shaping the modern Middle East.

Bad enough, we suffer to this day the consequences of Lawrence's fabrications.

Worse, a new generation of readers seems to accept as gospel the Lawrence of Arabia myth that stemmed from Lowell Thomas' hype and Lawrence's own Seven Pillars of Wisdom. While few seem to know it, this was long ago debunked. Those who want to know what really happened should at minimum also consult Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace and the Karsh's Empires of the Sand. Alyssa A. Lappen

Those who enjoyed David Lean's magnificent "Lawrence of Arabia" and picked this book up wanting to gain a deeper insight into T E Lawrence will be sorely disappointed if they expected to see the film reflected clearly in the book. True, the main incidents in the film are there in the book, albeit in a totally different context: you begin to realise how freely Robert Bolt (and presumably Lean himself) adapted Lawrence's account to make the film hang together more dramatically.

Many of the previous reviewers have commented that the book is a rewarding if demanding read, that it doesn't really "get going" until about 100 pages in, and that the constant shifts of scene and entrances and exits of characters are sometimes difficult to follow. All that is true - a friend of mine advised that Lawrence is easier to read about than to read. But I felt that choppy nature of the narrative was inevitable when one considers the type of warfare Lawrence describes: hit-and-run guerilla action undertaken by (often mutually antagonistic) Bedouin tribes. Just as Lawrence's raiding parties would emerge at unexpected places out of the desert, so the reader must be prepared for the text to jump from location to location, event to event, and must I suppose be prepared for much of the text (particularly the first 100 pages) to be devoted to how Lawrence managed to muster support both from the Arabs and from the British.

Parts of the book will remain with me for a long time - for example - Lawrence's descriptions of how he dug his camel out of the snow, the descriptions of the Bedouins' eating habits, the non-romantic description of life in the desert (defecating camels, infestations of lice and so on). However, what does come over is Lawrence as a tortured soul: he both loves and despises the Bedouin; professes that he knew from the start that the British (and therefore he himself) were merely using the Arabs against the Turks and would not honour their promises at the end of the War; is both proud (particularly of Allenby) and ashamed of the British; and is both spiritually and physically attracted to the Bedouin men, yet embarrassed by this.

It helps to have even a superficial knowledge of the Middle East campaigns in World War One: I felt that the danger of not having that overview is that one would tend to think that Lawrence's campaign was the pivotal factor in those campaigns rather than a contributory one (Allenby's campaigns are referred to only obliquely by Lawrence, even though in the later stages of the book he does emphasise the supportive role he was playing). Fair enough, as Lawrence was not writing a general history of the campaigns, but I feel (as my friend advised) that reading about Lawrence now that I have read him would be interesting.

Absolutely fascinating account of the Arab Revolt of World War I, and of the Mind of one of its orchestrators (that being TE Lawrence). I don't know much about WWI or II history but I'd recommend this as a great place to start. It has all the elements of a great war story -- strategies, battles, troop movements, intra-battling amongst Arab tribes, Arab history and culture, plus Lawrence's inner conflict about his knowledge that the Brits were merely using the Arabs as a pawn in the greater scheme of WWI. The relevance to modern times is staggering -- if we had not made the horrible mistakes we did then (not giving the Arabs the indepence they worked so hard for), the world would certainly be a better place today. Also, this book is beautifully written and contains absolutely wonderful descriptions of the Arabian terrain. My only criticism is that Lawrence tends sometimes to get a little too abstract and pontifical, but that's okay. Excellent work of literature in the form of a non-fiction memoir.