This short book was featured in the Observer (a UK Sunday Newspaper) Literary Supplement in August 2001. In substance it's little more than an extended lit crit essay, with a bit of speculative history thrown in (as the author reminds us time and again, Harris talks to no man, and he is no exception).

By and large this work does what Sexton wants it to - that is, to open the reader's eyes to a deeper, more sophisticated Thomas Harris than one might expect from the melodramatic (Sexton's term) serial thriller genre that Harris seems happy to sit in. Sexton certainly succeeds in that and the strands he draws out of Poe, Stoker, Conan Doyle are fascinating, if not totally compelling.

BUT ... having said that, Sexton's range of references is pretty eclectic - in its literary tradition, Hannibal apparently derives from the three said potboilers and - um - Baudelaire!! (and the inevitable dash if Nietzsche, if I recall) but no-one else. Some of the links to these antecedents are pretty tenuous, which makes you wonder exactly how much homework Sexton did do - what, for example, might he have discovered if he'd done a compare and contrast on the Marquis de Sade as well? Or the Brothers Grimm? He makes great reference to the "Hannotations" website, where some poor obsessive has gone through Harris' latest (Hannibal) line by line uncovering obscure and extraordinary cross references in the text. This may be a worthwhile enterprise (after all, Harris spent ten years writing the book, so maybe he did concentrate on the text at this level) but I doubt it. Rather surprisingly there's not much in Sexton's book which doesn't appear on the web site - read from that what you will about the depth of Sexton's research.

Sexton's fervent defence of Harris against all comers - especially in re Hannibal - smacks of untempered adulation: Having heard him out, I'm still not convinced that Hannibal wasn't the flat out clunker its many detractors suggest. Harris may be a literary genius - but on the same evidence may just be a mildly sociopathic saddo - and Sexton's arguments for the former aren't especially persuasive.

Finally, Sexton's suggestion that Harris is the only decent writer of gothic melodrama (or any other popular fiction today, for that matter) is just silly - it leads one to wonder whether Sexton's shallow research isn't simply matched by the breadth of his holiday reading.

David Sexton has done an interesting job of assembling what is known about Thomas Harris and drawing logical conclusions using his published works. After all, it was John Douglas (Mindhunter) who said "If you want to understand the artist, look at his work". While Douglas was undoubtedly referring to serial killers, that saying can equallly be applied to Harris. Do I agree with everything Sexton has postulated here about Harris and his 4 books? No but short of Harris giving an in-depth interview (or writing his autobiography), we'll never know for sure, will we? The only point I'd really like to take Sexton (and others) to task for is the assumption that it took Harris 6 years to write Red Dragon, 7 years to pen The Silence Of The Lambs, and 11 years to finish Hannibal. Who knows when he started and finished? Who cares? If his next novel (no matter what it's about) does come out in 2014 (Sexton's guess), my life (and I'm sure Harris') will go on until then. Get over it and move on.

After reading Wreck and Resurrection, I was disappointed with the quality of the publication. Illustrations are of a poor quality by the publisher: Tortuga Books. They are such poor quality, that the book would have been more enjoyable without them. It was interesting reading about David Harris's experience in dealing with the insurance settlement process.

Five days after hurricane Georges savaged the Florida Keys in September 1998, David Harris was on the sea in his dinghy and trying to locate his boat, Top Cat. His 32-foot catamaran sailboat had been anchored in a shallow, protected cove before the storm hit. When Harris finally found his boat it was up on the shore, upside down, and with a hull spiked by mangroves. Declared a total loss by the insurer, Harris refused to give up his beloved craft. With little more than a homeowner's carpentry, electrical, and plumbing skills, Harris repaired Top Cat, spending less than half the insurance proceeds in the process and ending with a "profit" of more than $60,000. What he learned as a result of this amazing nautical restoration and repair project also resulted in improvements and upgrades making Top Cat an even better boat than before the hurricane! Illustrated with black-and-white drawings and diagrams, Wreck And Resurrection: How I Made $60,000 Repairing My Sailboat is "must" reading for anyone who has ever contemplated rebuilding a boat of their own either out of necessity or just for fun!

This book contains papers presented at the V. Gordon Childe Centennial Conference held at the Institute of Archaeology in 1992. While the book does deal with Childe's theoritical archaeology, it also addresses his early life before embarking in archaeology.

Contributors to this volume are Bruce Trigger, Michael Rowlands, John Mulvaney, Leo Klejn, Kent Flannery, and Colin Renfrew. Trigger's and Renfrew's essays are forceful pieces on why archaeologists should stilll read Childe today. They also strip away the myth of him just being a 'Marxist' archaeologist; their essays demonstrate his theoritical contributions are much richer than that. Flannery takes a much more aggressive tone and is critical of Childe for his lack of interest in the New World and critical of his theories and models. Attacks like these should best be launched while the author is alive in my opinion. The essay by Mulvaney looks at Childe's life before archaeology, and Klejn's essay deals with a letter from Childe to Institute of Archaeology in St. Petersburg.

The target audience of this book is not clear though. While centered on Childe, these essays present a variety of facets concerning his life and works. Overall, its enjoyable and intellectually stimulating reading.

Being a lover of all things ancient Roman, from the Latin language to the classical culture and also being a longtime student of Latin and Mandarin, I was very much looking forward to this book.

However, from the viewpoint of the anticipated content of this book, and its actual contents, I was disappointed. I was expecting a 'blow by blow' description of the search for the ancient Roman heritage of Li-Jien (the Roman influenced towns of ancient China) and its discovery; but instead it was more of a 'how to survive in China on $10 a day' book combined with social commentary and an insight into the author's lovelife. As an Australian myself (the author is Australian), I was hoping for more.

However, disregarding the above, it was still an enjoyable read; but not what I wanted when I purchased the book.

This in mind, would I buy it again: yes; hence the 3 stars.

This is a fine book, but a warning: having been written by Brits for Brits, it is (understandably) Anglo-centric. Unless you are planning on covering the Coventry city council or writing up scorecards for Cricket matches, this book may not be for you. Yanks should search out an American alternative.

Much of the material here duplicates that found in the Big Book of Jewish Humor (1981) but somehow manages to make the jokes worse with time. There are a few nice ones but I went pages without so much as a giggle. If you want Jewish humor or even soviet Jewish humor try out the 1981 book mentioned earlier.

If you've read Tristan Jones, Harry Pigeon, Joshua Slocum or Frank Mulville, you may be disappointed in this one. Harris' account has plenty of factual detail that would be useful as a cross-check to other Caribbean cruising guides, such as the Van Sant he mentions. Unfortunately, I got the feeling he was more interested in getting the voyage over than savoring the experieces and people he meets.

The sailing purist will wince at the author's persistant reliance on power in anything less favorable than a beam reach. Also, I was surprised that he would knowingly attempt a Gulf Stream crossing with an inadequate reefing system and a defective auto pilot. This is not a book for cruising beginners (like myself) looking for pointers on seamanship.

I found the book stylistically monotonous with its persistant use of present tense, active voice and picture captions that are direct quotes from the text. A good, frank editor could have made this account more enjoyable.

Bought this book with the misplaced enthusiam of the thought of learning some neat techniques on Kayaking, How to turn over from 180 degrees, Ride the ocean surf.. none of these were in this book, only canoe techniques which for the most part im familiar. Am returning the book, maybe I didnt read the description enough. Oh well

I was quite disappointed with this book for several reasons. First, it is not a travel or cruising guide. There is virtually no specific information on restaurants, shops, anchorages, dive sites, etc. Second, it is not a nature guide. The authors offer brief and vague descriptions of the flora and fauna they encounter, but readily admit that they are not sure what several species are. Finally, this book is not very entertaining or well written...Reading this book is akin to going over to someone's house to look at pictures of their latest vacation and have them offer a terse (but redundant) narrative of their activities. How many times do they have to tell us they had a sandwich and a beer for lunch and then split another beer between them? The book is written with short, choppy sentences that give it a "Dick-and-Jane" feel that I found quite annoying. There are several maps and pictures in the text, but no nautical charts. Also, the pictures are often grainy and the colors are dull. I just don't see the point of this book.