Traces the life of aviation pioneer Richard Pearse from the very beginning to the very end, as well as backgrounding him firmly in his rather odd family and the cultural situation of the times in which he worked. Thorough, well-documented, detailed, and accompanied by drawings, sketches and photographs, this book is far more complete than Rodliffe's _Wings Over Waitohi_ and even though it's a little older, seems to have far more information of value in it.

"The Sacred Mushroom Seeker" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

This is an excellent book for beginners. It keeps the sentences short and simple. The words are repeated often and used in different sentences and contexts. This helps the beginning reader learn the words and read new sentences with more confidence.

Compared with the Aero series title about the Corsair this books stands out by beating the other on al fronts. It has one page more, but instead of five sideviews you get more than forty. It has more and better text and it has more photographs, though not all of the same quality as in the Maloney-Feist book. If your funds are not unlimited and if you had to choose between these two books when you come across them in a second-hand bookshop I would urge you to take this one.
By the way, it was published in Britain by Osprey as Aircam no.23 and in the States as Arco/Aircam no.28 by Arco Publishing. Together with the Maloney/Feist book and the two "Aircraft in Profile" publications it was pretty much all you could buy about this plane when I started reading about WW2 aviation. Since then a lot of books have been published, but no book has as yet rivalled this one in the amount of color side vews.

Richard Gordon explains how one can go about healing others, with no special talent or skill. It is a matter of proper breathing, light or no touch, and a few minutes of time. Polarity is the art of changing your own electic field to a calm, radiating positive field. Then your patien, or "friend"'s field naturally attunes to your vibe. Its lovely really. The pictures are wonderful too.

Arthur Gordon Pym was a young man who had dreams of great adventure. He defied his family and stowed away on board a whaling ship. Doing this lead him into all sorts of exciting adventures. He confronted things like mutiny, near starvation, and altercations with different cultures.

I'd have to say that this story is "classic Poe". If you are a fan of Poe's short stories, you'll definitely like this book. I only had a few problems with the story. There were times that the story dragged, but this is far outweighed by the times that the story was very exciting, and I couldn't put the book down. I won't go into the ending, but it left me unsettled.

I found that the explanatory notes were very helpful. I'm not a great scholar on any level, nor will I ever claim to be. The explanatory notes were very simple to understand, and it helped me understand portions of the story that caused confusion, particularly the end.

I haven't yet ruled out the possibility that I'm simply an oddball, but I assume every boy goes through a sort of Poe mania at some stage, at least I did. In fact, I got so bad around 5th grade that, having torn through the stories and poems, I was even reading biographies about him. But somehow, even with all of that, I think I had missed this longer work. I'm sorry I did, because while this wildly overstuffed adventure is enjoyable now, I would have really loved it as a kid.

When Arthur Gordon Pym stows away on a whaling ship, he little dreams that he'll encounter tyranny, mutiny, biblical storms, cannibalism, shipwreck...and Poe's just getting warmed up.

I've read that he cobbled together this semi-novel from several shorter pieces he'd written. It has a somewhat uneven feel to it; episodic, even disjointed. And as the episodes are piled one on top of the other it becomes a tad much. But it is always fun, often thrilling, and the mayhem that lurks on the surface guards layer upon layer of allegory and allusion. As you read you find yourself saying, "Hey, Melville borrowed that scene and Jack London got that idea here and Lovecraft cadged this plot..." If you have any doubts about how influential a literary figure Edgar Allan Poe was, this melodramatic masterpiece will put them to rest. More importantly, you'll thoroughly enjoy yourself.

GRADE: A-

A Great Poe Story

"The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym of Nantucket" is a devilish tale about a young sea-loving man by the name of Arthur Gordon Pym. He becomes a stowaway onboard a ship by the name of Grampus. This gravely error causes the mutiny of the Grampus, the stranding of the Grampus at sea, and the death of his friend, Augustus. I believe this story is a wonderful spine-tingling tale by the popular author Edgar Allan Poe. This story would be a wonderful addition to anyone's horror story collection, especially anyone who loves Edgar A. Poe's gruesomely good stories of horror and mystery.

Major Gordon's experiences accurate reflect those of thousands of his fellow prisoners of the Japanese. The nation owes a debt to Major Gordon, not just for his service, but for his willingness the recall the unending horror and write it DOWN!

Typically, post war records are replete with errors and it is only through thoughtful histories such as Gordon's can the next generation understand what price was paid for the freedom of the world.

Sadly, today we no longer teach the history of World War II. Ask any crowd of college kids and less than 5% would recognize the names of Bataan and Corregidor. Yet these same students can tell you every detail about the nasty twelve months of the "McCarthy Era" and, from their history text books, the life story of the "Beetles." The "Quislings" remain in control of our colleges and media. No one is ever taught about the Kamikazes of Japan and how the terrorists who attack today are absolutely the same enemy.

"Horyo" is a worthy addition for any serious student of World War II. Only with books like this, can the public ever understand why Japan owes the world an apology and reparation to its victims. Next to the Japanese, the Nazis appear angelic.

I felt this book gave me a better understanding of a critical period in American history. It is not typical of a lot of POW narratives I have read. The author provides an interesting look at pre-war military life in the Philippines. He also looks at questions surrounding the surrender of American and Filipino forces to the Japanese. I found his discriptions of POW life very insightful. They poignantly demonstrate what can happen to military personnel when there is an absence of leadership and discipline.

This heartbreaking book must be read with a half-decent grasp of the truth of American history. Otherwise, Gordon's story becomes trivialised. Out of context, it loses its meaning. Just another war story.

America is at an historical crossroads. More than ever, this arrogant, over-confident, money-obsessed, chronically ignorant, 'super'power needs to face the nasty FACTS of its own Hollywood-distorted history. Acting on unfathomable ignorance, its media-induced citizens can endorse yet another monumental politico-military blunder. This time, one too many perhaps!

The bigger they are, the harder they fall!

Bataan & Corregidor were purely American/MacArthur disasters. A truly hideous episode, swept under the rug. There is nothing to romanticise or commercialise. There is no saving grace, just total & utter disgrace - so Hollywood & the Spielberg's of this world, steer well clear of it; preferring to fantasize that Americans won WWII, when it was really won by the Russians at Stalingrad!, more than anyone.

O dear, that won't go down well in the Pentagon, will it? Is that the FBI I hear tapping my phone?

The average American imagines that 'Americans' won the Revolutionary War, led by Geo. Washington. But it was France who financed it and the French navy, more than anyone, that defeated the British monarchists. The American colonists/Congress neither financed nor supported the war in any heroic sense, at all. In fact their neglect of Washington & his tatterdemalion 'army' was a disgrace! From Chesapeake to Corregidor is not such an unimaginable leap in the context of American military history.

After the disgrace of Bataan & Corregidor (covered up), nevermind the fright of Pearl Harbour (now romanticised), the Americans did wage the Pacific War, and won decisively, only because of the Atomic Bomb, courtesy of scientists fleeing Hitler + a ruthless Truman, who DID grasp American military history as few Presidents have, and quit while he was ahead - ignoring MacArthur! Then came the utter stupidity and failure of Korea.

Do these people never learn?

Then the infamous, unforgiveable Vietnam War. A purely American war, with catastrophic results. Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon were all historically clueless. Read McNamara to find out how totally incompetent the American politicians & military were, once again.

Before outraged Americans follow Messrs Bush, Cheney, Rumfeldt and Powell's yahoo-ing posse too enthusiastically, into yet another ambush, under the banner of a "World-wide War against Terrorism", they would be wise to read up on the history of their own military prowess. We will avert our gaze from the futility of "Desert Storm" which was little more than a bloated fart against the winds of history, as we can now see.

Vast armies and unlimited weaponry do not a victory make.

The dwindling percentage of Americans who vote, urgently need to unglue themselves from their TV screens and read up on their real history, which is inglorious to say the least. Major Gordon's story is a pretty decent place to begin their long overdue education. It's an honest tale, rather well told, about an ugly (but far from isolated) chapter in American history.

America IS blessed with ONE redeeming feature: Energetic, investigative journalism and honest historical researchers, second to none in the world. Major Gordon, and many others, cut from the same cloth, may yet wake up this slothful, over-moneyed, ignorant nation, before it is too late: But only if their stories are taken to heart.

God bless America indeed!

Richard Gordon is a physician, a writer and a humorist. His history of medicine is, indeed, alarming. It was not so much what wasn't known that mattered, but what physicians thought they knew and did not. The book is light and quick paced. At times I wished Gordon had quit trying to be funny and had spent a little more time expounding on his massive knowledge of medicine and its history. I am not an expert in this field, but I did make an effort to check some of his facts...and he was right on target. The book is packed with medical trivia and funny gossip (sometimes horrible gossip) about its practitioners. Much of the information is astonishing if not alarming. The book lacks an index, which is infuriating and should be forbidden in these days of computers. It does have a few pages of references. In all I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and I certainly learned a great deal of new and interesting facts, despite the author's obsession with the quick, witty phrase.

If you enjoy Jeeves-type British humor and obscure non-fiction (as I do), this book will provide you with many delights. I can see how the "Briticisms" could annoy (I happen to enjoy this stuff), but overall Gordon is a very skillful comic writer, able to highlight the silliness in an anecdote without hitting you over the head with it, and at the same time offering a glimpse of his obviously vast knowledge of medical history.
Regarding content, suffice it to say that Gordon's book stands as further proof that fact is far stranger, more intriguing, and alarming than fiction could ever hope to be.

This audiobook is an excellent addition to the U.S. history-buff's glove compartment. There are basically four tapes of interviews by Roger Mudd done for the History Channel. Mudd asks questions to the featured historians and they respond with stories and factoids to keep you thinking. I can listen to them many times and still learn things that I didn't catch the last time around. This is also a great way to brush up on your U.S. history while enriching what you already know.

This is the very best audio tape I've ever listened to. While some interviews are better (Stephen Ambrose) than others (Richard White), each one offers important insight and perspective on the most important events of our time. Through the eyes of these men, our nation's history is told so clearly and succinctly, and with such passion, that you can't help but be changed and moved by the experience. I guarantee you'll come away with a better grasp of who we are and where we're headed as a nation.

Thorough research has made this an excellent book. By actually being able to back up all the theorys and whatnot, Mr. Gordon has presented a book well worth reading. It may not contain popular views, but it is definitely thought provoking and an in depth look at one of the oldest institutions on earth. The only reason I've rated it at 4 stars and not 5 is the amount of typos. Some are commical, while some are totally confuzing. I'm sure this is not Mr. Gordon's doing, since he is so thorough in all other areas.

In reading Mr. Gordon`s book, I find a fascinating drama. A lawyer who once was on the road to priesthood, a supposed murder of a priest by a former priest who incidentally is the priest's real father and the other members of his cast of characters make for a wonderful romance and adventure with a sudden shock ending. I can`t reccommend it enough