This book (which I have not read) is purported on this webiste and elsewhere to be a collaborative effort between Dumas and Williams or at least a Williams adaptation of a Dumas play. It is actually believed by many others to be the sole work of Williams and of inferior quality to anything penned by Dumas.

A must read for any book fan worth his salt... a masterful book.... I loved it tremndously......
The story is about , as most of you will know , D'Artagnan , who comes from the district of Gascon to the city to become a musketeer and his adventures with the new friends he makes from the King's musketeers.......

I recommend this book to everyone......

How hard can it be to make a decent audio tape of one man reading the Bible? The opposite side bleeds through and they often break between sides right in the middle (or worse, just before the end) of a verse. The 2 stars is just for Scourby's voice quality.

After reading the only review available at the time, I was hesitant to order this tape, but I already had the New Testiment read by Alexander Scourby, so I felt confident that the review was due to a bad quality tape. I was very happy with the tapes when they arrived, the sound quality is excellent and I have enjoyed hearing it as I drive around. I highly recommend this set of tapes to anyone who wants to read the bible but doesn't have much time. You can listen to these tapes while you drive or do housework! Its great!!!

My only complaint about this play is that Shakespeare should have had some dialogues where the characters discussed crucial history before the play opens. Gloucester (murdered or dead before the play but mentioned several times) had tried to usurp Richard's crown too many times. History itself is not sure if Gloucester died or was murdered. Bolingbroke for a while conspired with Gloucester and now sees another oppurtunity to usurp the crown.The virtuous John of Gaunt served Richard with honor and integrity and eventually moved parliament into arresting Gloucester for treason. This would of made John of Gaunt's rages all the more valid. Otherwise this play is outstanding! Richard shows himself to be capable of ruling at times, but gains our contempt when he seizes his the honorable John of Gaunt's wealth. John of Gaunt's final rage in 2.1 is a passage of immense rageful beauty. Also, Shakespeare moves us into strongly suspecting that Richard had Gloucester murdered. However, despite Richard's crime, Shakespeare masterfully reverses our feelings and moves us into having deep pity for Richard when he is deposed. The Bishop of Carlisle (Richard's true friend) provides some powerful passages of his own. I can not overestimate the grace in which Shakespeare increases our new won pity for Richard when Bolingbroke (Gaunt's rightful heir) regains his wealth and the death of Gloucester is left ambiguous. 5.1, when Richard sadly leaves his queen and can see that Henry IV and his followers will eventually divide is a scene of sorrowful beauty. 5.4 is chilling when Exton plots Richard's murder. 5.5 is chilling and captivating when Richard dies but manages to take two of the thugs down with him. The icing on the cake is that Bolingbroke (Henry IV) can only regret his actions and realize that he has gotten himself into a troublesome situation. But that will be covered in "1 Henry IV" and "2 Henry IV." We can easily argue that it is in "Richard II" where we see Shakespeare's mastery of the language at its finest.

Richard II was incompetent, wastefully extravagant, overtaxed his nobles and peasants, ignored his senior advisors, and lavished dukedoms on his favorites. His rival, Henry of Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), was popular with the common man and undeservingly suffered banishment and loss of all his property. And yet two centuries later Elizabethans viewed the overthrow of Richard II as fundamentally wrong and ultimately responsible for 100 years of crisis and civil war. Queen Elizabeth's government even censored Shakespeare's play.

Shakespeare masterfully manipulates our feelings and attitude toward Richard II and Bolingbroke. We initially watch Richard II try to reconcile differences between two apparently loyal subjects each challenging the other's loyalty to the king. He seemingly reluctantly approves a trial by combat. But a month later, only minutes before combat begins, he banishes both form England. We begin to question Richard's motivation.

Richard's subsequent behavior, especially his illegal seizure of Bolingbroke's land and title, persuades us that his overthrow is justified. But as King Richard's position declines, a more kingly, more contemplative ruler emerges. He faces overthrow and eventual death with dignity and courage. Meanwhile we see Bolingbroke, now Henry IV, beset with unease, uncertainty, and eventually guilt for his action.

Shakespeare also leaves us in in a state of uncertainty. What is the role of a subject? What are the limits of passive obedience? How do we reconcile the overthrow of an incompetent ruler with the divine right of kings? Will Henry IV, his children, or England itself suffer retribution?

Richard II has elements of a tragedy, but is fundamentally a historical play. I was late coming to Shakespeare's English histories and despite my familiarity with many of his works I found myself somewhat disoriented. I did not appreciate the complex relationships between the aristocratic families, nor what had happened before. Fortunately I was rescued by Peter Saccio, the author of "Shakespeare's English Kings". Saccio's delightful book explores how Shakespeare's imagination and actual history are intertwined.

I hope you enjoy Richard II as much as I have. It is the gateway to Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V, all exceptional plays.

The thing with Shakespeare histories is that almost no one reads them, as opposed to his tragedies and comedies. I don't know why that is. The histories that are read are either Henry V (largely due to Branagh's movie), Richard III (because the hunchback king is so over-the-top evil), or the gargantuan trilogy of Henry VI, with the nearly saintly king (at least by Part III) who much prefers contemplating religion and ethics to ruling and dealing with the cabals among his nobles.

So why read a relatively obscure history about a relatively obscure king? Aside from the obvious (it's Shakespeare, stupid), it is a wonderful piece of writing - intense, lyrical, and subtle. Richard II is morally ambiguous, initially an arrogant, callous figure who heeds no warnings against his behavior. Of course, his behavior, which includes seizing the property of nobles without regard for their heirs, leads to his downfall. Nothing in his character or behavior inspires his subjects so he has no passionate defenders when one of the wronged heirs leads a rebellion to depose Richard II. But Richard now becomes a much more sympathetic figure -especially in the scene where he confronts the usurper, Richard acknowledges his mistakes, but eloquently wonders what happens when the wronged subjects can depose the leader when they are wronged. What then of the monarchy, what then of England?

On top of the profound political musings, you get some extraordinarily lyrical Shakespeare (and that is truly extraordinary). Most well known may be the description of England that was used in the airline commercial a few years back... "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, ..."

If you like Shakespeare and haven't read this play, you've missed a gem.

This book deals with one of the great mysteries in history - who killed Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. My biggest complaint with this novel is the author's note. The author states that Alexander's character is very much as found in the historical documents; "rather shy, self-effacing, suffering from panic attacks, and very shy of women." Not quite. Every ancient source portrays him as gregarious, prone to excessive ego and ambition, incredibly bold and often reckless. There is no indication he was shy around women, rather that he was somewhat disinterested in them sexually until his mid-20's. Alexander had conquered the known world by his 30th birthday, and one has to question the author's opinion of his character.

For those who wish to make up their minds for themselves about Alexander's character, I recommend A.B. Bosworth's excellent, "Conquest and Empire, the Reign of Alexander the Great," available, of course, from Amazon.com.

I am a real fan of Ancient Greece in fiction....and looked forward to reading this novel with a great deal of interest.

But while the premise is an excellent one...some ideas should be left as just that, ideas, or at least they should be presented to more capable hands.

Apart from the numerous historical inaccuracies...the references to the authors of this time read like name dropping...the story centers on the efforts of a Jewish maiden, Miriam, to uncover the identity of Phillip of Macedon's murderer, not on Alexander, and the entire story suffers from stilted conversations, contrived circumstances, and a lack of time spent researching the actual daily lives of these people.

The characters are mere caricatures of the actual persons involved in the story, and even the 'invented' characters suffer from a serious lack of development and 'fleshing out'. The revelation of a character's involvement in the murder at the end is anti-climactic, as the character was never really given much importance in the story.

The author's note at the end attempts to justify the contents with claims that there is historical evidence to support most of the action, and the speculations made are at least partly grounded in fact. That part I can accept...but while the story centers on a murder...the greatest crime of the novel is the novel itself. It suffers greatly from lack of actual time spent researching the time period, and only the few facts and suppositions gleaned by the author prior to writing it that appear in the novel in no way qualify it as good historical fiction.

Nice try, Anna Apostolou, but many have done it better.

Historical mysteries are all the rage now, and so we come to the murder of a king in Ancient Greece, replete with conspiracy, intrigue, and witchcraft. Such novels are harder to write than regular detective novels: in addition to the mystery needing to be good, the historical aspects need to be good also. Here the author succeeds reasonably well, and the result is a good book, worth reading if you're interested in Greek history or mysteries.

I had only a sketchy knowledge of the murder of Philip of Macedon prior to this book, but what I saw in the book was good. The king is killed during a public ceremony by one of his own guards, who is about to escape, but killed by the guards under circumstances that make it look as if he was never intended to escape at all. There's also another assassin who's been killed, further confusing things.

The detective protagonist is the most interesting character in the book, a Jewish woman whose brother is a scribe for the king himself. Once the king is dead, Alexander (soon to be the Great) asks the woman and her brother to look into the murder, and what she finds is fun and intriguing. There's a spurned wife who indulges in witchcraft, and [unintellegent] son who seems harmless but is looking for a suspicious knife, a crafty old general who's scheming for power, a pair of brothers who are pretenders to the throne, etc. All of these are suspects, and Miriam, must sort through them and figure out who might or might not have done it.

Miriam and her brother are interesting characters, and the solution is believable, if a bit far-fetched. I would recommend the book, and will be looking for the sequel.

Where can I purschase Alexander Scourby's reading without the music. I agree with the canadian reviewer. Also, I want the Old and New Books of the KJV of the bible.
thank you!
cliff

I must admit that I was so anxious to get my hands on this trustworthy Bible translation straight from the correct Hebrew and Greek back in January. But when I listened to it, the value of this product started to fade due to marginal acting, frequent error, and distracting background music.

The Old Testament has the "voice of God" (also known as Scourby's voice manipulated via computer technology), but portions of his recording are wearing out, therefore making his 'voice' hard to percieve -- the music is too loud.

The book of Leviticus is by far the worst in the collection because you can't hear the voice half the time and the repetitive music is an intense distraction. Yet, Leviticus is one of the most important books in the Law of Moses!

During the portion in the book of Genesis when Noah's generation is spoken of, the words 'after the flood' were accidently eliminated.

To make matters worse, the New Testament is not free of error. The words 'bewrayeth' and 'betrayeth' have different meaning.

Sound effects are too repetitive.

Overall, this is a nice production, but not worth [money]. I'm gonna sell it as soon as I can for a low, budget price. If you're looking for a perfectly done King James dramatization, don't expect to find it here. I'd reccommend the original, voice-only narration from Scourby or perhaps another reader.

(I edited this review because I thought my previous one wasn't clear enough.)

BEING A RELAATIVE NEWCOME TO AUDIO BOOKS, I found this one extremely disconcertin.

There is NO usage of today's computer technolgy. I had assumed I would be able to search in many ways. Nothing like this exists.I assumed (you know the saying about the word assume!) that the CD set would have much more flexibility.

To make matters worse the titles on the CD's are in no way indicative of the contents of that CD.

On the positive side (the only reason for a 3 rating), I loved listening to the voice of Scourby.

If you are just looking for a simple audio version of the Bible this may be for you, although the price seems very high for what you get.

I found this book to be very biased. I am Christian, my husband is Jewish and we are raising our children Jewish. If you are considering converting to the Jewish faith, then you'll find this book supportive and it might work for you. However, don't be misled into thinking it's a book for interfaith families. This book left me hurt, more confused and even a little angry. I do NOT recommend it.

While this book does a good job of pointing out the conflicts/issues/problems that interfaith couples will face when raising children, I found it definitely biased toward choosing one religion in the home, and making that religion Judaism. If you are looking for ways in which to incorporate two religions in a home--skip this book.

Despite the "Do Not Buy" review, I did purchase this book almost by accident. While it did not offer any wonderful suggestions, it did start to ask the right questions. My boyfriend and I are beginning this journey of education, conversation and decision making and this did help formulate some questions. I did however find "The Interfaith Family Guidebook" VERY helpful and insightful! (also available here on amazon)

The reading by Alexander Scourby is quite good -- worth five stars. But if you detest added music and sound effects (as I do), avoid this product. Nothing on this site or on the outer package warned me that it was dramatized. Only after I opened the package (rendering it unreturnable) did I find that it is filled with mushy, sentimentalized sound effects added by the editors.

Where is the JOY of this momentous tome? At best it's pedestian
monotones are lethargic. I have heard recorded bibles that are dramatically uplifting and memorable. Even awarding ONE star
flatters mediocrity.

The author states, in the book's preface, that it is a travesty that Alexander McGillivray has received so little attention and renown as a major figure in our Nation's early history. This book is meant to fill the void.

Unfortunately, the writer has provided fiction in the guise of fact. This book codifies some family legends about Alexander and creates many new myths.

This book may be entertaining literature for children but it must not be considered as historical nonfiction.

This is probably the saddest study on Alexander the Great I have ever read. Ashley wants us - seriously - to believe Nearchos' fleet battled with Neanderthal men. A misreading of Arrian by the author has convinced him that Aristobulus was the son of the Indian King Poros. There are major and minor mistakes on almost every page. At the price of 60 US dollars, you should really look for a better book.

I'm sorry, but this is as it is.