Entertaining, insightful, one of a kind

Boat owners will appreciate Hugh Bright's Complete Marine Radio Control Manual, a basic guide to marine radio systems and a primer which includes battery management, servos, electric motors, and all the basics essential to maintaining and operating the radio system. System outlines and black and white photos appear throughout the chapters covering radio basics.

The Rebels Trilogy was a great edtion to the Star Trek Universe and I think it was a great series. I liked hearing more about Kai Winn and here life during Cardassian Rule. I also Think that Daffyd Ad Hugh is a great writer and has done well with most of his Star Trek books!

"Cranial Base Surgery" is an excellent reference for neurosurgical and neuroanesthesia providers, as well as for any students of these areas. This text contains excellent, clear descriptions of some of the rarest and most difficult to access of all neurosurgical problems. Excellent for students of neuroanatomy, it provides in depth descriptions of the structures of the cranial base. Physiologists will be interested in the information on neurological reflexes that can be elicited from manipulation of the structures of the cranial base.

The chapter on neuroanesthesia, written by Wayne Hamm, is a complete reference for Anesthesiologists, CRNA's and anesthesia residents and students who deliver anesthetic care during cranial base surgery. The structure of a customized anesthetic plan for each different procedure emphasizes the individual clinical questions created by this surgically remote area of the brain.

I first read this book as a 17 year old....that was a long time ago and it is still one of the books that has most affected my life (I am now 50 years old). It is in some ways a very simple book to read, but the totality of it's information in terms of its' effect on the thinking process is quite profound. If everyone read this book, our society would be markedly different, and much less superficial. Unfortunately most humans are not critical thinkers. It is not one of those mystical 'new wave' - "how to improve yourself" texts. It is information that can be applied to your everyday life from the trivial to the vastly important. It is a very basic building block on how to really understand what is going on and if what is being said has validity. I firmly believe it is a book that should be required reading of every educated freshman in college. It has given me the ability to continue to think "out of the box" and not become stagnant. I recommend it for anyone who values thinking.

This book is a spring fed river of knowledge of original essays by acclaimed scholars. The forward by William Julius Wilson
elevates the debate over the value of converting criminological theory into policy. Jack Gibbs is hard as nails, and Elizabeth Stanko shines with insight.Hugh Barlow and this exceptional book is absolutely convincing that social scientists have a serious responsibility to be agents of change in the real world. Get real and buy this book

Hugh Callaghan was convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings in 1975, along with 5 other men, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was also completely innocent of every charge brought against him. This is his story, from his upbringing in Belfast and later life in Birmingham to the night that changed his life forever. It tells about the fitup, the kangaroo court trials, the police brutality, the life in prison, the refusal for many years by anyone bar a few people to believe in the innocence of the Birmingham Six. It is a damning indictment of a "justice" system which would rather a quick result than the truth and does not care about the people it destroys in the process. It is also a story of hope and of how the world can be changed when there are enough people doing it. This book is a must read for anyone who cares about true justice.

I got this book as reference for a medieval historical I was writing, set partially on the Saone and Rhone rivers. This was possibly the best reference I used since I can't go over there to check out the place in person, and the people I know who have been there haven't been able to give me much information.

This book recounts incredible detail about the countryside and regional dishes, availability of shopping, hotels, and tourist spots, and there are little humorous stories about some of the stops along the way. The detailed accounts of each lock along the canals is absolutely amazing and I'm sure quite helpful for those who actually find themselves there.

Unfortunately, the canal system of France was started after my book was set, so I couldn't use the lock and interesting layovers along the canal info, but...

Now I want to go to France and cruise all these fascinating rivers and canals! I'm afraid that's going to cost considerably more than this book does. Until then, I'll continue to peruse the book and dream.

This book successfully pulls off the difficult trick of being both a serious scholarly text and an enormously engaging introduction to the history and architecture of Crusader castles for the lay reader. The book is an obvious labor of love, which helps to account for its great charm. You first get a sense of this on the dedication page - "For Xana, with love, to remind her of Syrian days" - whereby Kennedy expresses his appreciation for his daughter's companionship on his rovings around Syria. (In his "Acknowledgements," he also credits his daughter with persuading him "to complete the climb to Bourzey when the spirit was willing but the flesh was getting a bit weak.")

If you needed any further confirmation that Kennedy is a scholar with a puckish sense of humor and a droll wit, you get it at the beginning of his "Note on Names," where he wryly observes that, "Like the naming of cats, the naming of Crusader castles is a complicated problem." Kennedy's writing voice conjures to mind images of a cozy library in some great English country house, where your host relaxes in a satin smoking jacket while both of you swirl brandy in your snifters and discourse about the comparative merits of crumbling castles on the western fringes of Asia. The book's first chapter - a survey of the development of Crusader castle studies from the mid-nineteenth century to the present - beautifully encapsulates Kennedy's discursive style and story-telling skills. "[Emmanuel Guillaume] Rey's life is something of a mystery," he muses, and you want to lean forward from your chair on the opposite side of the fireplace and say, "Tell me more." And he does, with an notable eye for the memorable quote, such as T.E. Lawrence's ironic complaint, while traveling around the Levant in 1909, that he was unable to reach Amman owing to "the unthinking activity of some local Bedawin in tearing up the Hejaz railway."

In form, the book consists of a generally chronological survey of the development of the Crusader castle, with individual chapters on siege warfare and the special features of (respectively) the castles of Templars, Teutonic knights, Hospitallers, and the Muslim princes. Another sign of Kennedy's passionate engagement with this project is the fact that he took all of the 90-some color and black-and-white photographs that illustrate the book himself. (There are also another two dozen plans, sketches, and prints illustrating the text.)

The photographs, together with Kennedy's text, cover not only the well-known structures like Krak des Chevaliers, Belvoir, Saone, and Montfort, but will also introduce you to a fascinating collection of lesser-known castles. Among these are the great Hospitaller citadel of Marqat, near the Syrian coast; the two castles overlooking ancient Petra; and - most curious of all - the cave-castle of al-Halbis Jaldak overlooking the Yarmuk River valley, the subject of a siege memorably described by the twelfth-century historian William of Tyre (which Kennedy helpfully quotes in its entirety). Kennedy's enthusiasm also extends to the humbler fortified towers of the lesser Latin nobility.

Kennedy's secret is plainly that he is both a scholar and a romantic - as anyone who wishes to write effectively about the Crusades should probably be. Let me close this review by quoting his own explanation for his enterprise in producing this book:

"There is something fascinating and frequently moving about forlorn and failed enterprises, those 'old, forgotten far-off things and battles long ago,' however perverse they may now seem. It is impossible for me to stand on the windswept battlements of Crac des Cevaliers, climb to the remote crags of the fortress overlooking Petra or explore the magical stillness of the deserted valley by Bourzey, without feeling a potent mixture of admiration and nostalgia which breathes excitement and emotional commitment into scholarship."

This book can be enthusiastically recommended to history buffs and armchair travelers, as well as to those with a more scholarly basis for their interest.

This is the best book I have read on the history of Tibet, especially as it pertains to religion. It fairly treats the BON as well as all four Sects of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism equally. Unlike other histories or recent art books on Tibet written by western converts, this work does not reflect a personal political agenda.