Hello,
My name is Scott Neely and I liked the spot illustrations that I drew for this book. It has an X-Files feel to it and is a great supplement to the role-playing game. Enjoy!
Scott

The Conspiracy X rpg is one of the coolest around, and the Aegis organisation definitely needed a source book of its own. And here it is. It has loads more stuff on Aegis, including some cool new skils 'n professions. The stuff on Aegis rocks, and the advice on operations and tactics has helped my players get further into character. All in all, an invaluable addition to any Con X player's/GM's library.

this book is really good, the author, arlene ferguson came to talk to us about it and she showed us a real junkanoo hat and everything. the pictures are really interesting and the history is brilliant (a word she used)!!

This book is a "true-true" part of Bahamian history. Very few books have been written about the history of this cultural festival and this one is phenomenal. Nash-Ferguson gives a first person account of the entire process and history of the festival and the reader truly feels a part of the experience. The graphics and layout of this book are also wonderful - from the scene displayed through a piece of ripped cardboard on the cover to the shots of the costumes throughout it is easy to see why Junkanoo is considered true Bahamian culture by many.

Ryle's work is timeless. You will chuckle at some of the exhortations to stay away from books and newspapers that will lead to sin. If only Ryle could see us now, with cable tv and the internet.

Ryle's advice is biblical and practical. It is wise. It will help any young man who takes it seriously to live a more obedient, full life.

This is an excellent book for adolescent and teen boys to read. It encourages them to choose the high path of integrity rather than to yield to the many temptations to stray from that path. The author's style is one of a passionate appeal based on solid logic and the truth of the Scriptures.

This book goes into great detail regarding Wearings past works, and some of her current 'works in progress.' There are plenty of examples of her photographs, including the 'Signs...' collection and stills of the many videos that she has produced. The most useful chapter is the interview with the artist. What I found most interesting was that the interviewer asks Wearing some good questions about her work, like why she chose to do it and how she went about asking her subjects to be in the photographs. The only problem that I found with the book was some of the language used. The writers are obviously fairly intelligent people and their wide vocabulary had me reading from a dictionary almost as much as I read the book. Such language does lead you to gloss over certain areas of the book which leaves you slightly unsatisfied. However as long as you can get through the book it offers a deep insight into all of the artists work and her life, containing plenty of photographic examples of her work, very useful.

"An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mysticism and Mystery Religions" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

Dr. Ferguson introduced me to John Owen through this work and I have been hooked ever since. If you would like to study a man who epitomized the way scholarship and piety is to be mixed together, then Owen is the one for you. Dr. Ferguson does a noteworthy job of making otherwise difficult reading a real joy.

This book shows his master of the darkroom, making all his works unique to themselves. If you are into black & white photography and printing this book is a revelation of what is possible.

This is an excellent collection of essays by the greatest preachers in the Reformed tradition today. Some of the topics include The Primacy of Preaching (Mohler), The Teaching Pastor (Sproul), Evangelistic Preaching (Alexander), and The Foolishness of Preaching (Boice). John Piper's essay on Preaching to Suffering People is one of the best things he has ever written and by itself is worth the price of the book ten times over. Derek Thomas' essay on Expository Preaching is full of very good instruction. Joel Beakes' contribution on Experimental Preaching is also excellent. I highly recommend this book for pastors. If you are not a pastor, consider purchasing it for your pastor as a gift. He will be appreciative.

The Fact that this book is excellent should be no surprise, merely take a glance at the authors. This book will probably offend pastors who are in to the modern pop pyschology, but then they probably wouldn't be reading it anyway. Granted, that was probably unfair but...
Naturally some chapters are better than others, here are a few:

"The Lasting Effect of Experimental Preaching"--the essay on spiritual formation--worth the price of the book.

"The Primacy of Preaching"--by Albert Mohler--very good, a wake up call to the church.

"Expository Preaching"--good and bad examples of expository preaching, very fun chapter.

"Preaching to Suffering People"--by John Piper. It is by Piper, enough said.

"A reminder to Shepherds"--By John Macarthur, a fitting close to a fine book.

Absolutely essential reading for upcomming (as well as seasoned) preachers. A true gem, very informative, and a must for all who proclaim God's Word.

The tales of King Arthur and of the knights of the Round Table are well-known and have been the subject of many books, poems (Tennyson), at least two musical works (Purcell's "King Arthur", and the famous Broadway musical, "Camelot"), and films ("Camelot", based on the musical, and "Excalibur"). The most famous English-language book version of these tales is this version by Sir Thomas Malory, yet this is not easily readable, even in modern prose. The modern English rendition by Keith Baines is excellent, for it allows those of us who do not have Ph.D's in English literature to get an idea of what the original was like, but the book itself is tedious in its very nature.

What you should expect with this book is a very good beginning and ending, and a "will it ever end ?" middle. Arthur himself cannot be called the central character, for he is virtually absent, except in the first tale of the book, which deals with his coming to power, and the last one, about his death. The rest of this book is concerned with jousting and tournaments, so much that in the end one gets bored with this never-ending succession of fights with knights whose names you'll only read once and which have no consequence on what is supposed to be the larger plot (such as the quest for the Holy Grail, or the famous Tristram and Iseult tale). Of course, the better-known knights of the Round Table, such as Launcelot, Tristram, and Percivale, are present, but only from time to time, and narration often shifts from one to the other for no reason.

What this book lacks most is continuity. Apart from the first and last tales, everything in between is not in chronological order, which gets confusing. In one tale one character is dead and another is well-known; in the next tale the first character is living and the second one is unknown (just take the example of King Pellinore and Sir Percivale). All tales were obviously separate ones, and the reader, at some point, will simply stop trying to understand how Malory ever came up with such an order for his tales. If Malory (or his original publishers) had any idea in mind when they chose this setup of the tales, it will appear unclear to most readers.

One of the few good points of this book is that, since it was written in the late Middle Ages, it avoids to a certain extent the over-romanticization of the Middle Ages, which is what later authors, such as Sir Walter Scott, did to such an extent that even today we cannot think of the Middle Ages without having in mind the picture-perfect version of it (which I will not delve into -- I'm sure you know what I have in mind). Even though chivalry as described in the book has some romantic elements attached to it, it is never fully exploited, and "Le Morte d'Arthur" certainly does not fit the requirements to be classified into the romantic genre (which was not fully described until the nineteenth century). This book therefore does not use romanticism as we now know it. But this good point may also be one of the book's weaknesses, because the topic is a legend, and not fact. Because this subject is not historically accurate (and some parts of the book are hilariously improbable), Malory could not use realism to replace romanticism, and I believe that if he had used more romanticism in his book it would only have made it better. In the end, Malory used neither style, and this makes his writing style very dry. His characters are mere fighting machines with no emotional depth, his narration is action, action, and action: no description, either of his own characters or of the scenery (a castle is a castle, nothing more). The scenes he depicts cannot be located, for the setting is never described. Malory, above all, was an awful storyteller. He could only describe his characters jousting and fighting, and since this had nothing to do with the larger plot, this only lengthens the book for no reason. (If you want a modern comparison, just think of a public orator who just tells personal anecdotes that are not related to his topic.)

Furthermore, anyone interested in the Middle Ages has nothing to gain from reading this book. It holds no historical interest (apart from a study of the English language, but then I would not go for this modern rendition) for the reason that its subject is not based on fact and its description of society in the early Middle Ages is simplistic. This book is certainly no "Canterbury Tales", in which a lot can be learned about what was life during the Middle Ages. So if you are mainly interested in history I'd skip "Le Morte d'Arthur" and I'd go for "The Canterbury Tales" instead.

In conclusion, "Le Morte d'Arthur" is worth reading only if you have the patience to go through it, for this book is overlong and repetitive. Keith Baines's rendition makes this task easier, and his appendix on the main characters is very helpful if you intend to skip parts (which you should not do because the whole is chronologically inaccurate).

Both Volumes 1 and 2 of Penguins Le Morte D'Arthur were filled with an endless fountain of legends and reading these books one knows why it provided inspiration for writers throughout the centuries. The sub plots alone (ex: King Mark and Sir Tristam's love for Isoud and Sir Palomides internal and external battles) provide the aspiring writer with a wealth of plots and ideas. But for the love of God Penguin could have included some clear annotation throughout the book. The footnotes are in dire need of a major overhaul. All Penguin gives us is a few pages of translation for the more obscure words, but the reader has to go back and forth between the story and the dictionary. To put it simply it's an enourmous pain to do this. A system of annotation similar to Signet's publishing of Paradise Lost & Regained (which is also an excellent copy of this classic which I highly recommend) would have put this set of books up to five stars. Once you get past the obscure English the book becomes surprisingly easy to read, far easier than Shakespeare or Chaucer. Malory, obviously, was not a writer like Chaucer but he did do us a favor and put the bulk of the French legends into a handy volume so we wouldn't have to search through obscure Old French romances. So think of this more as an anthology rather than a novel. For those of you struggling through the text, as I did, you can skip to almost any part of the book (except the very first and very last part) and the story you will read will make sense (this is of course assuming you understand the obscure English).

I don't read a lot. In fact, the only time I do read is when I am required to do so by a class. Such is the case with The Tales of King Arthur. But although I would never have read the book were it not for my fascinating English teacher, I must say that I have never read anything as intriguing as the Tales of King Arthur.

Getting used to the language isn't as difficult as some other reviewers are saying... At least it wasn't for me (and I'm an eighteen year-old high school student). You'll struggle through the first few pages but once you've got an ear for it the language comes natural (somewhat like reading Shakespeare - it takes time to adjust). I found nothing tedious about the book other than the somewhat unfocussed book of the Sangrail.

The characters are awesome, the language is awesome, the plots and emotions are awesome. If you read this from beginning to end you'll walk away with a sincere compassion for the characters and the inevitable death of the times.

I can't imagine bothering with a modernized version - the classic text is just so sweet.

Please give me more information-

Stephen Friar is always interesting, and this time has written intelligibly to introduce the subject of Heraldry to the non-informed. Basic Heraldry offers a good all-round in depth introduction to the subject of Heraldry. The book is well composed around a series of chapters touching on most of the aspects in which Heraldy is found today.

For the more initiate Friar's "An Heraldic Alphabet" is absolutely invaluable, containing as it does some revolutionary (for such a feudal science) theories about the classifying of Sub-Ordinaries.

The two books together form a useful beginner's library for a Heraldic enthusiast, if one is primarily interested in British Heraldry, although Basic Heraldry does also touch on the European Mainland side of things.

I Have not read it but would like to have it specially morrocan style