Wow! One of Colin Forbes's best! Britain is under threat from a 'silent' enemy as a body is washed ashore on the south coast. Paula Grey, well-spoken British secret agent, discovers it to be a friend. Enter the Deputy Director of the SIS, Tweed, and foreign correspondent Bob Newman who investigate the murder and discover more than meets the eye! What is the secret of two mysterios and close-knit villages in Britain and Belgium? Why are ships around the world mysteriously disappearing? And as if that wasn't enough, a former British Army brigadier is liasing with Chinese troops and aiding in the construction of stealth warships which radar cannot detect, which seem to be heading for Denmark. Can Tweed and company stop them? The action never stops and also I think I should mention that Colin Forbes's books always give me hours of amusement. In between tracking bad guys, Paula, Tweed and other SIS colleagues always find time to wine and dine at the best restaurants and dress smartly as they track the villains, AVENGERS-style! Also, ace sniper Marler appears with his trusty Armalite rifle and if he needs back-up, in typical Colin Forbes-style, he can get hold of the weapons he needs wherever he wants. How convenient! And why not. The locations are well-researched(I recognised the Danish parts having been near where the story is set myself)Overall, if you can track down a copy, this great British thriller comes highly recommended and you won't want to put it down. So crack open a bottle of champagne, Tweed-style!

Special agents for British intelligence Tweed and Paula Grey, along with a foreign press correspondent, investigate boats that disappear off the south coast of England. When bodies are washed up ashore, they are linked to a mysterious village called Moors Landing, where the reclusive locals don't want visitors. Then the action shifts to Belgium, Germany and Denmark - more villages bought out by a consortium run by Dr Wand, a former Chinese general under a new identity. It becomes apparent that Chinese agents, along with stealth boats, are planning an invasion of Europe in a covert military operation. As more ships disappear at sea, and time runs out, Paula Grey is kidnapped by Dr Wand's cronies and it is up to Tweed to find her, and stop a world war. Can he save the world, or at least Europe? This is a great British thriller which, in spite of a lame narrative at the start picks up the pace and does not let go until the end! The prose is simple to understand, the exact opposite of a highly detailed technothriller but with enough to hold the story in place and appeal to a wide variety of readers, and Forbes also travels to the locations featured - I have visited southern Denmark, Germany and Belgium myself so I could relate to his descriptions of the countries well. Overall, if you can get hold of this, it comes highly recommended. I'll be reading more of his material now!

Wonderfully presented book examining the history and production facility set up by Carl Faberge. The research is spot on, as are the sumptuous colour photographs of many of the pieces produced, and I have seen few works on the subject as comprehensive as this one. As with the designers and craftsmen at the Faberge workshops this book is an inspiration, and I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. A visual and intellectual feast for the mind and soul.

This book is an exhibition catalouge for what must be one of the most amazing exhibitons held on Faberge in the World, in Vienna in 1987. At the back of the book there are hundreds of illustrated items by the firm. Most of the pictures are in colour, and the book is gorgeous, and covers everything from Imperial Easter eggs to jewllery and hardstone figures.

In additon to it's stunning photos the book also has as great deal of information about the firm and it's manufacturing techniqes that many other books on Faberge don't cover.

If you can find a copy of this book - Get it! I've only got a library book but if I ever get the chance to own a copy of this I will. Shame it's out of print.

A classic Colin Forbes suspenser! England's top MI6 secret agent Tweed is framed for a rape and a murder he did not commit, and is forced to flee to Europe in the midst of winter. Paula Grey, his trusty assistant, and Bob Newman, international reporter-turned-secret agent stand by his pleas for innocence. Meanwhile, a British government minister called Lance Buckmaster plans to alter the balance of power in the world . . . what is the significance of the hijacking of a ship carrying a supercomputer anti-ballistic missile space defence system? Tweed seems to be the only key, and he is being hunted by the authorities across Europe. To add to this, ace sniper Marler infiltrates Buckmaster's organisation, who are also trackong Tweed, to find out the villain's true aims using any means necessary. This is a brilliant thriller with Colin Forbes's trademarks - well-researched locations, amusing narrative and plot twists galaore when you least expect them! DON'T MISS IT!

First book I ever read of Colin Forbes, and was the first book I could not put down without reading another page!

The careful photographs compliment the equally fine details in the buildings of this excellent architect. After a year, I'm still looking at it often.

This is perhaps the best value in pictorial architecture books. For under $20., this book has great photos, straightforeward text, clearly reproduced drawings (including construction details!!), all superbly graphically designed. Even if the architecture doesn't appeal to you, the overall presentation of it in this book will. If you do like the architecture (which I think is a beautiful modern adaption of conventional New England vernacular), then this book is a must-have. You won't find this quality in books two or three times the cost!!

France is in crisis. A right-wing general with leanings towards neo-Nazism is calling on the French people to rise up against immigrants. Rioting breaks out in cities, but is it really what it seems? Is someone engineering the crisis to change French leadership? Then to top it all, the French President and his ministers are killed when their TGV train is firebombed on a bridge and plunges into an abyss. Who can save France, and ultimately the stability of Europe? Rene Lasalle, head of French counterespionage sends for Britain's best SIS agents Tweed, Paula Grey and international foreign correspondent Bob Newman, along with trusty rifleman Marler. Can they stop the general in time before tanks roll on Paris armed with chemical artillery? Who is the mysterious assassin Manteau, who is blackmailing the general into paying him extortionate sums for carrying out orders? This book is a real page-turner! And of course, Tweed and his motley crew get to drink loads of wine and champagne in between drawing their enemies out into the open and cheating death! This is what makes a Colin Forbes novel worthwhile. Don't miss this one!

This strong precise outlook reflects different aspects of different sides of the business spectrum. It's a truly positive look at successful businesses and the great minds behind them. Grove, Smith, Lynch, Rowland, & Volcker all share insights & directions in a volatile era. With Gretchen Morgenson, Senior Editor at Forbes magazine, letting these truly gifted individuals openly express ideas, predictions and success fortitudes. Forbes Great Minds made a lasting impression on me. It was great to listens to these fascinating people in an informal interview. To pick up one new idea and one new lesson is worth the time spent, but too generate the detailed information they provided is extraordinary.

This is an excellent collection of contemporary and classic essays dealing with people's sense of place, the vernacular landscape, perception of the environment and wilderness, and the meaning of community. The book began initially as an effort by the Trust for Public Land (TPL) to better comprehend the core social values imbedded in its land conservation mission and how to better apply these to strengthening communities (natural, social, and cultural) and to promote and foster a more healthy, sustainable natural world. After exploring these issues, TPL decided that there would be great value in including the greater community in its discussion of these issues and subsequently published this collection as a means to that end. Included our writing by Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Wallace Stegner, Harry S. Truman, Gary Snyder, Annie Dillard, Linda Hogan, James Howard Kunstler, John Steinbeck, Mary Oliver, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Bill McKibben, to name only a few.

As a professional conservationist, I was familiar with the themes and issues raised in this book, but had not read many of these essays beforehand. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest as to why we should preserve open space, wilderness, parks, and wetlands and anyone curious at to how individual lives and communities relate to the natural world; the message is so rarely delivered as eloquently and effectively

This is a great publication about avian medicine. It has very clear explanations about diseases and procedures. Also it shows very descriptive pictures, figures and charts.

I am a Zoo Vet and I have found this book a great source of information.

Peter Forbes' Scanning the Century meets the editor's objective of capturing 'this century's flavor "with something like the tang of newsreel and the zest of popular song."' Forbes selects from a wide range of contemporary poets, from those standards of the British educational curriculum, such as Auden and Hardy, to poets in translation, who are perhaps unknown to English-speakers, such as Toge Sankichi writing on Hiroshima or Goran Simic on the Yugoslav conflict. Forbes manages to stitch together such British school favourites as 'Naming of Parts' by Henry Reed, with poems by black Glaswegian poet Jackie Kay and by Nigerian Wole Soyinka, successfully scanning the century in terms of time as well as geography.

If I have a problem with this anthology, it is that Forbes meets his objective a touch too well. Whilst poetry can always match 'the zest of a popular song', it sits uneasily in newsreel format. As though he is providing us with tasters, Forbes frequently uses extracts rather than including whole poems. It may be that he had problems with copyright, or that at 596 pages in paperback he didn't have the space to include all the text he would have liked. Nevertheless, in some cases he would have used little more space in including the whole poem. (See, for example, Tony Harrison's four verse extract from 'Long Distance' - the whole poem is only eight stanzas long!) And in other cases, he only makes the slightest of gestures towards a great work. For example, he only includes a few stanzas from 'The Fire Sermon' in the case of Eliot's landmark work, The Waste Land. At the same time, Forbes cuts Eliot's 'Preludes' in half. It would have cost him no more space, would have allowed him to showcase Eliot's achievements in modernism and would have allowed the reader to feel satisfied in one full poem, had he used the whole of 'Preludes' and left The Waste Land out. At least then, the reader would have had the satisfaction of reading 'Preludes' as Eliot published the work, and wouldn't be wondering what had been omitted from this Reader's Digest version of Eliot's works. If you know the poem, you feel shortchanged by the edited version; if you don't know it, you can't help wondering what it might be like in full. And that means you have to use Scanning the Century as a springboard to other poetry books.

The second difficulty with Forbes' editorial choices is that the glibness of some of his section headings hovers between puncturing poetic pomposity (alliteration accidental) and sending up the subject matter of the poems grouped under those headings. Some of these headings have a distinctly postmodern, tongue-in-cheek flavour, though Forbes dismisses postmodernism with scary ease. He reduces postmodernism to a preoccupation with the nature of reality, then shoves it aside, as a matter for philosophers. Against postmodernism's scepticism with respect to absolute truth, Forbes argues that science and history (if we refrain from interpreting the latter) provide us with indisputable truths, which, he implies, proves the case for sidelining postmodernism! Hmm.

Despite these quibbles, if you are looking for a book to mark the passing of the century, and a means of savouring the flavour of our times, whilst notching up the major events and movements of the past hundred years' history, Scanning the Century will meet your requirements.

I think I had to spend too much time using my imagination to fill in spots Mr. Forbes left in his story-telling and smoothing over surface inconsistencies. He didn't draw many pictures for me, I had to do much of it myself.

On the other hand, the story was gripping, fascinating - I got quite a bit of enjoyment out of racing virtually across the European continent with Newman, Tweed and the gang.

I'd recommend for light-to-medium reading.

My first Forbes-book. I liked it a lot

This is another classic British thriller! In this follow-on from SHOCKWAVE, England's finest secret agents Tweed, Paula Grey and Bob Newman especially, investigate a frightening covert military conspiracy funded by INCUBUS, a massive American banking concern. They intend to create instability in Eastern Europe using rather unconventional means. Once again, Forbes has created a cracking novel! The suspense is loaded big time, the locations, particularly Sweden and Finland are well-researched and added to the interest, and once again Tweed, Paula and Bob Newman find time to stay to the best hotels and drink champagne! So fill up that tall glass and ENJOY!