I first discovered the work of Noel Virtue on a trip to New Zealand years ago and immediately became faithful reader. Eventually I have read his entire body of work. There was some serious searching online and in used bookstores. It is a challenge to find many of his books in the U.S., but certainly worth the effort. It is hard to understand why Noel Virtue hasn't received the recognition he deserves in America. I chanced upon Lady Jean earlier this year in London. I am delighted that it is being offered on Amazon - it'll be my gift of choice this year at Christmas.
Readers familiar with Noel Virtue's works will recognize a number of themes and character types from earlier works. They are familiar, but it certainly is all very new and fresh. Reaching the end of Lady Jean you have not merely finished a story, but feel you know an entire household of characters as intimately as a group of your own close friends. The only regret is that just as you feel you get to know these wonderful and interesting people, the book comes to an end. The story is told in Virtue's familiar and straightforward style. Like his previous work, the genius of his style is that Lady Jean seems to just read like a good book, when in truth it is a highly refined, important work of literature. It is Virtue's, clean, unpretentious writing with the ability to tell a good story that reminds me of one of my other favorite authors - Willa Cather. Anyone who has enjoyed his earlier works, will certainly adore Lady Jean. For first time readers, it would be a fine introduction to Noel Virtue. Though be warned, you'll often find yourself hoping to get lucky in the "V's" of every used bookstore's fiction section.
While I would recommend a number of Noel Virtue's works, Lady Jean is in a category by itself. It's the most significant work of literature to come out of New Zealand since Keri Hulme's The Bone People. Lady Jean confirms Noel Virtue's status as one of New Zealand's leading writers.

I am a devotee of Mr Virtue's books and was lucky enough to obtain this one as soon as it came out. The quirkiness of the characters is a joy to read; each one is different and so well observed, it is as tho' one is present and eavesdropping in the background. The writing has an air of comedy and mystery about it; a cross between Charles Dickens in its delineation of the characters and Oscar Wilde in its wit. I am lucky in that I have lived in both St Johns Wood and Brighton and know the big houses in the former and the slight seediness of the latter. Eccentrics abound in both places and Mr Virtue has captured the essence of both. I wanted the book to go on and on far beyond its final page; the writing is so full it makes one want to know more about all the characters. A veritable tour de force. A must for anyone who appreciates true literature.

Helen L McNidder Sinclair, Brighton, UK

This is a really wonderful, funny, shocking novel, with such true British characters, an excellent plot and a completely satisfying ending.It could well become a modern classic. Just excellent.

This is work is comprehensive, easy to follow, and well-formatted. It is an excellent introduction to the action principle. It also serves as a great primer for the mathematics of special relativity, 4-vectors, vector fields and tensors. It is a shame that it doesn't go very far into GR (from the least action perspective) though.

I highly recommend this book to undergraduate and graduate students in physics and astrophysics. It's clearly written, with a very modern approach (and book design!).

This is an excellent book. It is an introduction to Lagrangian mechanics, starting with Newtonian physics and proceeding to topics such as relativistic Lagrangian fields and Lagrangians in General Relativity, electrodynamics, Gauge theory, and relativistic gravitation. The mathematical notation used is introduced and explained as the book progresses, so it can be understood by students at the undergraduate level in physics or applied mathmatics, yet it is rigorous enough to serve as an introduction to the mathematics and concepts required for courses in relativistic quantum field theory and general relativity.

Penny, Robin, Naomi, and Alex Gareth are sent to live with their Great Aunt Dymphna in Ireland when their father takes ill (he's doing research outside of England) and their mother goes to be with him. Great Aunt Dymphna adds new shades of meaning to the word 'eccentric.' Her house is a dump and she expects the children to cook for themselves and do their own laundry and buy their own groceries--in a word, to be completely self-sufficient. The Gareth children are not a little put out, in more ways than one. Matters become even more complicated when they decide to hide a strange boy who claims that spies are after him. At summer's end, the Gareths go back home to London, having discovered that self-sufficiency is not impossible or even entirely distastful. Streatfeild writes in her customary elegant yet simultaneously down-to-earth style, with plenty of tongue in cheek comments and sharp observations. I'd love to give more details of the book's plot, complete with quotations, but that would take more space than I'm allowed to use. I'll just say that this is one of Streatfeild's absolute best, and (therefore, of course) one of the best children's books ever written.

i read this book aloud twice to my four children during summers in vermont...after 15 years, the thought of it still makes me smile...the dialect which at first my children couldn't understand, but wound up mimicing; the friendships old and young; mysterious old drafty rooms; the notion of letting barking dogs know where you're headed, so they can stop chasing your car. streatfield paints a beautiful, eccentric character in the aunt (who's name escapes me, but who scurries before me in my mind's eye still) ...loved the whole family of characters.

A twisting plot. One of the best Noel Streatfeild books ever. Please put it back in print with the "Shoe" books that are out of print (also by Noel Streatfeild.)

I glanced at a friend's copy of this book and since I'm on the Microsoft Windows Server Development team, I was very interested in the content and handling of the materials on DNS as well as global catalog and domain controller placement recommendations. I found the information to be accurate and the recommendations for a real world implementation to be very helpful!

I ended up buying a copy of the book as my friend took back his copy. Only complaint I have is that the book is over 1-1/2 inches thick. Not the easiest thing to carry around, but it does cover a LOT of information in depth! Very well written!

I was looking for a reference that covered the new Volume Shadow Copy, DFS, ASR, security components, IIS, RIS for Servers, and migration from Windows NT4 and Windows 2000. After downloading about a dozen whitepapers and buying a couple other Windows .NET Server books (all of which were outdated based on beta code or something), I finally bought this book based on a recommendation from a friend who works at Microsoft.

This book has a chapter on everything! Not only did the introduction tell me about new features I was not aware of in Windows Server 2003 that I'm going to try, but the book had detailed planning and preparation information as well as step by step procedures on implementing the technologies (steps that actually WORKED with the full release (not beta) version of the operating sytsem).

This is a great book for someone who wants to understand the basics of Windows Server 2003, or for someone experienced with Windows and wants to just cut right to the details.

Excellent book!

I've bought several of Rand Morimoto's books in the past, and this book was just as exceptional as the others! The company I work for is a 350-person law firm with limited IT staff. I wanted to leverage the new security, server consolidation, data replication, and fault tolerance technologies built-in to Windows Server 2003 and turned to this book for guidance.

I'm happy to say that by flipping through a handful of chapters in this book, I was able to successfully migrate my company to Windows Server 2003 this week!

Very well written, and each chapter stands on its own, so I didn't have to read all 1200 pages cover to cover to find the information I was looking for! I look forward to flipping through other chapters to start implementing other Windows Server 2003 technologies!

I highly recommend this book!

"Movie Shoes" combines the charm of "Ballet Shoes" (and the reappearance of the Fossil sisters) with the freshness of an American setting. The Winter family, mother and father, their nanny Peaseblossom, and the children, Jane, Rachel, and Tim, spend a winter in California shortly after World War II. The sunshine will be good for their father's health. How can Rachel afford dancing lessons? Aunt Cora does not see their importance. How will Tim, a promising pianist, find a piano to practice on? Rachel, a pupil at Madame Fidolia's, is "adopted" by Posy Fossil, now eighteen years old and dancing for Manoff in California. Lovers of "Ballet Shoes" will enjoy seeing the Fossils again. Bad-tempered Jane, the "middle child," is invited to play Mary in "The Secret Garden" while they are in California. The story of how these talented and indomitable children take care of themselves, and the adaptation of this British family to the United States, makes this the most American of Streatfeild's books. How splendid it would be if Dell Yearling, her American publishers, brought it back into print in the U.S.!

Do you remember when the Meg Ryan character walked into Tom Hanks' FOX BOOKS store and the customer asked about the "Shoes" books, and a monologue about the wonders of Noel Streatfeild's "Shoes" books ensued, touching on Dancing Shoes, Ballet Shoes, and Skating Shoes, which is absolutely wonderful? That scene made me break down crying, because I had never heard anyone other than myself talk about these terrific books, and the fact that it is tragic that they are mostly out of print and hard to find. This book is a wonderful story of about life for three British children in the United States, working hard for a goal, and accomplishing it, or at least getting on the road to achieving a reasonable, yet magical, goal. If you want a great book for your favorite elementary schooler - boy OR girl, buy this one - then buy the other "Shoes" books for your favorite girl (and get a copy of Tennis Shoes for your favorite boy too!)

Movie_Shoes is a wonderful book for someone who loves movies, books, and The_Secret_Garden. It weaves a magical tale around Jane Winter, and you start to believe you are her, putting up with bratty little Maurice Tuesday (Colin), longing to watch David Doe work his magic (Dickon), seeing your brother Tim play the piano almost professionally at age 8, and looking on as your older sister meets two of the most famous ballet personalities in the world. An intercultural adventure for everyone! Caution: Beware of nasty aunts.

I am not a fan of the English Romantics but I will make a big exception for Lord Byron. He's wild! "Don Juan," parts of which are included in this book, is bawdy and hilarious. Keep in mind that the poem was not considered fit for young ladies to read when it came out...are you tempted yet?

The Dover Thrift Editions are surprisingly well-constructed - they'll outlast, say, your Oxford World Classics paperbacks - and the poems are usually well-chosen. And they're....cheap!

This is a great collection of thirty of Byron's short poems, arranged in chronological order. Everyone should own at least one collection of Byron's work, and at this price, why not make this the one?

This is a great collection of mostly short poems by one of the greatest poets in memory. beginning with "Damaetas" and ending with "On this Day I complete my Thirty-sixth year" these 30 poems, in chronological order, represent a great portion of Byron's work, including portions of Childe Herold's Pilgramage, hebrew melodies, don juan, and manfred. great as an introduction to byron.

After Ballet Shoes, of course, this is my favorite of the Shoes books. And with the recent interest in skating because of Sarah Hughes, I think this one should be reprinted. What I like about this one is that the heroine is a gawky "daddy long-legs" girl who turns out to be a real skating star after being in her friend's shadow. And her friend, Lalla, who is the shining star in the early part of the book suffers from the perils of early success and of a "stage mother" or "skating mom" in a very realistic way. Despite her being a bit of a spoiled girl, we really come to like her. Probably the most balanced and realistic characterizations of the Shoe books. It's formulaic, of course, but we Shoe fans love the formula.

I have loved the Shoes series since I first discovered them at my library when I was younger. My favorite is probably Dancing Shoes, but any of these books make wonderful reading for young girls, especially if they dream about being an actress, skater, or dancer. And there is good news for those who wish they could buy some of the books that are out of print in the US. Skating Shoes (also known as White Boots in the UK), Circus Shoes, Party Shoes, and Tennis Shoes are all still in print in England, and can be purchased at amazon.co.uk.

And the customer asked about the "Shoes" books, and a monologue about the wonders of Noel Streatfeild's "Shoes" books ensued, touching on Dancing Shoes, Ballet Shoes, and Skating Shoes, which is absolutely wonderful? That scene made me break down crying, because I had never heard anyone other than myself talk about these terrific books, and the fact that it is tragic that they are mostly out of print and hard to find. This book is a wonderful story of working hard for a goal, and accomplishing it, or at least getting on the road to achieving a reasonable, yet magical, goal. If you want a great book for your favorite elementary school girl, buy this one - then buy the other "Shoes" books (and get a copy of Tennis Shoes for your favorite boy too!)

Mr. Newland pointed out that the book was published in 1975 and that Ultra Large Crude Carriers or ULCCs which is the official industry term for a supertanker, have probably gotten bigger. Indeed he is correct in his assumption. The world's largest ship right now (which also makes it the largest man-made moving object on the planet) is the Jahre Viking weighs a monumental 564,763 deadweight tons; has a length of 458.45 meters (approximately one third of a mile); and is driven by a 37,300 Kilowatt turbine.
Information can be found at ....

As Mr. Newland anticipated, the Jahre Viking was launched in 1976, one year after the book Supership was published. The Jahre Viking was built by Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd of Japan and is currently operated by Jahre-Wallem of Norway, one of the largest ship management companies in the world.

It goes without saying that if an accident were to happen to a ship of this size, the environmental consequences would be catastrophic. Of course, since 9-11-2001, the terrorist threat has added another dimension to the dilemma. One would hope that security measures have been re-evaluated, however I am not hopeful. As of this writing today, we here in the USA just saw a 15-year old boy take a small private Cessna aircraft, fly it past one of our most secure military bases -- McDill Air Force Base in Florida -- and crash it into a high-rise building owned by Bank of America. If that is how lax our security is on our own home turf and only three months after 9-11, I shudder to think what the security is like in international waters on the open seas.

I must agree with Mr. Newland that a 2nd edition of this book is needed and perhaps, now more than ever.

I first read Supership in the late 1970's and did not reread it until this year (2001). The second time around made a much deeper impression on me, and I found it to be - for the most part - as riveting and terrifying as a horror novel. I only wish Mostert's tale was fiction.

The book describes the pros and cons of supertankers, which I'm sure have only grown since the behemoths described from 30 years ago. Mostert is no muckraker, and he does humanize the crew in good and appropriate detail (they are individuals; not monsters, not corporate automatons), but the overriding feeling I got in reading the book was dismay and helpless frustration. The impact that these ships, and the oil-consuming culture that we take for granted, has resulted in more ecological devastation than we can know. The mysteries of ocean currents are one thing that make the range of oil spills and leaks impossible to know, but the way the earth depends on the numerous lifeforms in the sea are another. Like Rachel Carson a decade earlier, Mostert is a thinking and balanced environmental reporter, and he knows the sea. I found him to be an excellent writer, using the structure of the Ardshiel's basic Europe-Gulf-Europe round trip to order the book but spinning numerous side stories related to each stage of the trip to cast light on various historical and environmental issues. It held my interest and terrified me at the same time.

The fact that 27 years have passed since its writing seemed like a mixed blessing. On one hand, the earth has survived continued oil spills of huge proportions (the book makes you feel that mankind would not survive the 20th century). On the other hand, the spills and tanker volume have only increased since the early 1970's and who knows how much worse things have gotten.

Supership is a great read and I would hope that a 2nd edition is in the works!

I loved this book. It deals with many things, such as how these ships were built, and why. It also gives these massive vessels a human face, because the author actually trvelled aboard a supertanker, and he gives an exellent account of the voyage, as seen through his eyes, and those of the crew. A person reading this book will find themselves wondering how some shipowners are even allowed to operate at all, or how things have gotten the way they have. He raises many hard questions concerning flags of convenience, the environment, and ship safety. If you are into ships, the sea, or just want a good read, this is well worth getting hold of.

I read Wild animals i have known by Ernest Thompson.Its a 245 page book fild with short storys about animals.It as A little something for everyone. It has adventure, comody, sadness, and bunnys. Each story has its own characters both human and animal.My favorite story is one intitled Lobo.Its about a wolf traper and his toils with lobo the leader of the neiborhood wolf pack. Each story kept my attention throughout the whole book.I would recomend this book to everyone who likes to read about animals.

I first read this book as a very young reader, almost sixty years ago. Seton's ability to identify with the wildlife he studies,but with a minimum of anthropomorphism or sentimentality, and then write touching, exciting mini-dramas is enhanced by his role as an observer who does not inject himself as a foreign influence in their lives.

I'm buying copies of the hardcover edition for my grandchildren, for this book will be read more than once, and kept for a lifetime. Get it before it goes out of print again. Robert H. Tyrka, Sr. rtyrkasr@chesint.net

Seton Thompson's stories of wild animals and their wonderful ways touch the hearts of young and old. There are no happy endings in this book, because the moral is that animals always die tragic deaths. But if you want to learn the laws of nature and better understand animals and their ways, these accounts of a hunter-trapper will reward you with hours of enchanted stort-telling.

Faulkner is, without a doubt, one of the South's best writers, and re-reading this collection of novels after many years affirms that belief for me. He was a master of words and I wish we had more Faulkner novels to feast on. Almost no one can measure up to him!

There is nothing quantitative in this volume that you can't get in other editions of Faulkner's work; however, the Library of America copy is to be strongly commended for the clarity of its typeface, its sturdy cloth-bound hardcover, and its designed ability to *lie flat* at each page. The only fault I could find with this volume is that it would be nice to have _The Sound and the Fury_ included in a Library of America edition as well (currently, the Modern Library edition is the best that can be done). I strongly recommend this edition to the serious reader who, familiar with Faulkner, is looking for a reference copy of these works that will not deteriorate over time (did I mention acid-free paper and a cloth bookmark?). Considering the price of each of these titles in paperback, this volume's value to the casual reader speaks for itself; you, too, are advised to invest in this worthy tome.

There are many great books, but I have read only two perfect ones, "As I Lay Dying" by Faulkner and Shakespeare's "King Lear." Lear's "howl" after Cordelia's death is (I think) the high point of English literature and Vardeman's internal dialoge (and chapter heading "My Mother is a Fish") is the purest form of writing expression and the high-water mark of American Literature. If you like to read, there are so many subtle threads that run through "As I Lay Dying." You'll recognize Chaucer, T.S.Eliot, and I think Shakespeare's "Lear." Like Gorky, Faulkner uses common people to expound upon universal themes like betrayal and unrequited love, but he does it better, and looks at it harder, than anyone has before or since.