great guidebook. Describes in detail the good, the bad and the ugly of Nepal. The language section was extremely useful. A few hours spent learning some useful greetings and phrases will pay off tenfold upon arrival in Nepal. Being able to bargain or ask for directions in the native language is a lot of fun and much appreciated, especially since most travellers do not take the time to learn anything more than "Namaste."

This book has given me comfort and a wealth of information about what I would like to do and see in Nepal. Having a well planned trip in advance is smart and this book will probably tell you everything you need to know about anything, and more. Food, health issues, places to stay, sights, special points, etc. Definitely worth the investment.

I just returned from Nepal using this guide. The book was very well-written with lots of practical advice-- everything from how to book an airline to what kind of diahrrea you may have picked up. Very accurate information re. hotels, modes of transportation, etc. Useful vocabulary list.

David Knowles is a true scholar and presents his study in easy to follow language. This book consists of 21 chapters covering a time range from the very first monasteries until the present day. The author points out how the monks preserved knowledge and faith through the centuries.

This book picks up where most "Battle of the Atlantic" type books leave off. The Anglo-America cooperation, which is never covered in other books in this much detail, is given its proper credit for pivotal decisions and operations in the Atlantic, and specifically, in the breaking of the German 4-rotor Naval enigma cipher.

Book includes an impressive 247 footnotes, 45 photographs and graphics, and 10 pages single-spaced of bibliography -- for those readers who still need more information!

I think that readers of David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" or Hinsley's "Codebreakers" would surely like this book as well.

This book is essential for the student of Medieval Philosophy. It is the best, I prefer it even over E. Gilson's Medieval works. It is not superficial, it is rigorous and yet not boring. The serious reader's thirst will be quenched. His history is accurate. This is the standard by which the rest will be judged.

This is one small, short read. But great things come it small packages. Lucy was a great dog as you will find out. She from the owner was a great gift from God! You will definitely find a closer relationship with your dog or pet. I highly recommend! Me and my dog often talk like Lucy and her owner. Please order and give to a friend! God bless, and have a great day!

A large interesting book filled with great insights into never seen projects.  Alot of excellent pictures. And, for those of us who love MG Sports Sedans, documentation of the fact that the MG 1100 was originally to be named the MGC. A must for lovers of MGs of any era.

Following on his excellent work, 'MG The Untold Story', David Knowles adds a great deal of new material to events with which MGB aficionados are already familiar. In particular, the interviews with those involved with the factory and various companies are most enlightening. Even more of these personal insights would have been welcome. Extensive use of sidebars provides the opportunity to present statistics and detailed discussion of special topics, for example, a list of suppliers of MGB components, or the disagreement on the fate of the MGB GT prototype, without interrupting the main narrative.

The book also makes use of numerous black and white and colour photos, many of which have not been published previously. The only disappointment in this area is that some of the early colour photographs, including the cover shot are reproduced with a magenta cast, suggesting deterioration of the negatives, which I would have expected to be better corrected.

Chapters include development and production of the MGB, various stages in its life, as well as the GT, MGC, and V8 versions and the politics and corporate history pertinent to the MGB. I found the period of transition from chrome bumpers to "Sabrina" bumpers to rubber bumpers particularly well documented. The death of the MGB and the Abingdon works, and the attempts to rescue them, are also thoroughly covered. In addition, Knowles lends chapters to racing activities during the production period, and touches upon the brochures and advertising material. Separate chapters are devoted to the assembly of MGB's in Australia and the production of the Heritage bodyshell.

It should be noted that the author suggests that this book should be considered a complimentary publication to Anders Clausager's 'Original MG', which concentrates more on the precise production history of the MGB. Meanwhile Knowles has done an excellent job of presenting the why's, how's and who's of the saga.

My copy of the book was on order months in advance of publication. It was well worth the wait. I highly recommend it.

Augustine wrote the City of God to respond to pagan charges that Rome fell to the barbarians because Christianity had made it soft and removed the gods' (small "g") blessings. Augustine uses devastating (and occasionally tedious) historical reasoning and sheer deductive logic to demolish that view. Those who know little Roman history will have trouble understanding the allusions. There are, however, footnotes for the more obscure references.

Thomas Merton, probably the most activist contemplative in the 20th century, surely read the book in the original and felt he could make a more readable translation. This version is almost painfully literal. He adopts Augustine's Latin style, which tends to be very verbose. Forty word sentences, such as we would "ding" a 9th grader for, are the result. And those are the short ones! Nonetheless, blame the Latin original.

Still, shortening the sentences will in many cases lose some of the meaning. Latins thought a lot more rigorously and logically than we. Augustine was their leader. Don't read this non-stop, and have a history of Rome handy, just in case. This is a Christian classic that every educated person should know, but that doesn't mean it's as easy as, say, something by Tim LeHay.

Any thinking Christian is daunted by this three-pound monster, but he owes it to himself to read it, front to back. The Great Doctor of the Latin Church here set forth the tenets for the entire Church to come, based on diligent studies of Scripture. Augustine is surprisingly readable when discussing history and even rises to humor when he discusses ancient Roman religious practices. He anticipates many of the great existentialists by over a millenium and a half in his treatments of the Old Testament. At the end of an exhausting journey, one is left with a reaffirmed faith and renewed strength in the promise of our Savior. No man should be deprived of the nourishment of the mind and spirit contained in this book. Happy reading

Like one of the reviewers above, I, too, set about the daunting task of reading this book from cover to cover, and it took me a good six months to complete it. But what a wonderful and worthwhile investment of time it was! It would do the modern Church well to read this book since Augustine places the City of God (i.e., Christ and His Church) within the context of the pagan world in which we live, and its message is as applicable to today as it was 1,500 years ago when he first wrote it. Most impressive, his grasp of both classical and biblical history and his profound understanding of Scripture is unparalleled by almost any author I have ever read, from Jerome's time until the present. If for no other reason, Christians should buy this book to gain an appropriate understanding of the last days and the rightful interpretation of the book of Revelation. Most of today's books on this subject pale in comparison to Augustine's exposition of this lofty and (sometimes) arcane subject.

The camera obscura is housed in a small, box-like, concrete building atop a hill overlooking the ocean surf. The only clues that it isn't a storage shed or a utility space are the worlds - GIANT CAMERA -- painted in black on one side. Which is precisely what the device is -- a giant camera. A series of mirrors reflects the panorama of the Pacific onto a screen in the center of the dark chamber, creating an image that is almost magical in its beauty. It is a sight that has sparked deadly rivalry. It has driven men mad. It has claimed lives. In fact, it's still doing it... right now.

Near the end of my first reading of Knowles' esceptional novella, I asked myself: what authority does the author have to recast the major figures of history as deviants and scoundrels? Does the end result justify his means? In my humble opinion, the answer is a resounding "yes!". Underneath an insipid and meandering exterior, Knowles' novella is a gem of precise plotting, polished tone, and bizarre vignettes (one character is described as having invented the submarine "to escape the world of women on land"). It takes real talent to write something so consistently humorous and puzzling, even upon re-reading (in fact, I suggest reading the book twice - it's a mere 138 pages long, a night's reading).

Even the author's mundane, conversational language and the little, irritating, anachronistic faux-pas he commits so frequently (like art "yet to be hung" on the walls of Leonardo's Vatican, or sugar cubes in Vermeer's Delft) and his main character tries to pass off as historical truth serve to gradually estblish the narrator as a less than sympathetic character.

In the end, the book boils down to the question whether the camera does indeed bear an ancient curse, or if the "patterns of history" are siply products of an agitated imagination. I lean toard the latter, that the narrator is playing out his fantasies in his research journals, but there is no real, unequivocable evidence either way. Then again, who is the blind woman in the photograph? Is Darin as innocent as he claims? What did happen on that foggy night? It's easy to jump to the obvious conclusion, but far more tantalizing to ponder the possibilities.

For what it's worth reading, "The Secrets of the Camera Obscura" is worth reading twice. I hope I have helped you make the decision whether it's worth reading at all.

This is a curious little book - a whodunit in which you know whodunit within five pages - not because the author told you but because the device/conceit of the mystery is so blatant (predictable). Nonetheless, the book is a delightful romp in the history of the camera obscura, in the rereading of history, in the vision of an unstable mind breaking. While the plot is a very concise with only three characters - the owner of the camera, an Italian model, an art student - the story engages the Chinese inventors of the camera obscura, deVinci and Vemeer. It is this play with the history of the camera obscura that makes this an interesting, though flawed, first novel. It will be worth watching for additional novels, Knowles' talent is worth watching develop.

A brilliant piece of fiction that succeeds in carrying the reader along a tightrope between genius and insanity, between desire and obsession, and between the challenges of intellectual pursuit and primal self-interest. This slim little volumes's legacy is to haunt your thoughts long after the last page has been read. You must read this book!

Apart from the intriguing ethical considerations raised concerning the practice of voyeurism as a means of creating more "realistic" art, author David Knowles has created a character and situation in "The Third Eye" that force the reader to examine issues of control, privacy and obsession in our modern world. While we are all voyeurs to a certain extent, at the same time we are often keenly aware of how we appear to others and we gear our actions accordingly. But how much actual control do we have over the view of our true selves? And do we intentionally blur the line between the real and the staged in our daily activities?

Jefferson, the novel's protagonist and self-professed "curator of the aesthetics of everyday life", isn't your ordinary Peeping Tom. Each summer he rents out his apartment to an unsuspecting young lady, then heads to the building across the street and a boarded-up apartment. Through a hole in one of the windows, Jefferson photographs his tenants, capturing their most private moments on film and calling his work a "conceptual art project". He wants to eradicate the boundaries between life and art but his actions are the only way he has of coping with a case of agoraphobia so severe he cannot even walk through Central Park.

His tenant this summer is Maya Vanasi, a Hindu woman possessing a bindi, or "third eye" - a red dot in the center of her forehead, which Maya tells Jefferson is a window to the soul. For Jefferson, the bindi marks the beginning of an obsession and an eventual end to his summer occupation.

Taunt prose and a well-paced unraveling of a creepy yet fascinating story define this excellent novel which chronicles one man's insistent need to frame another's life, a need that ultimately leads him into a sea of questions concerning matters of faith, darkness and perception - both his and that of others.

David Knowles writes in a style that provokes the reader to stop and think. Sometimes his ideas are a little too psychedelic, expecially when he starts to ponder the bounderies of time and space. However, his insights on art appreciation are interesting. Not to mention that the tale he weaves is increadlibly absorbing. The plot is straightforward. A man sublets his apartment every summer to a beautiful girl and then he watches her and photographs her from accross the street. However, as "The Third Eye" unfolds, the reader is taken beyond the plot into the protagonist's mind in a most intriguing way. I couldn't put it down and I finished it in two sittings. If you're fond of metaphysical fiction this is a great read. If you enjoyed this I highly recommend Tim Krabbe's "The Vanishing", Douglas Cooper's "Amnesia", and Sylvia Browrigg's "The Metaphysical Touch".

The "third eye" of the title refers to the red dot that a propective sub-letter wears between her eyebrows. Our slightly warped but endearing narrator Jefferson chooses "victims" to sublet his apartment so he can spy on them and use them as subjects for his reality based art. Although the story sounds twisted, Knowles is so terribly clever that he resists the tawdry.

This is a tremendous novel -- Knowles gets almost everything right. First of all, the New York stuff is right on -- the eateries, the snobbery, the housing market, the 42nd street library, etc.... As a native New Yorker myself, I loved the New Yorkiness of this book right down to the narrator's odd food cravings and penchant for gourmet wine.

I also loved the understated hyper education level of the narrator. The resulting dialogue is at times hilarious. Take for example this excerpt in which he is explaining to a prospective tenant about his background in classical music, "When I was a young boy, six or seven, I'd stand in front of the mirror holding a pair of chopticks like two conductor's batons. I'd wave the things around in the air listening to whole symphonies. I memorized Beethoven's Fifth from start to finish. Got pretty good at making up my own signals." With no comment at all, the girl replies, "When I was six I listened to ABBA and Air Supply." End of joke and dialogue continues. Knowles doesn't have to play extra hard for the laugh because he writes such good dialogue.

At times you'll feel like you're in the mind of a serial killer, but actually the narrator is far more benign than that -- just a little voyeuristic in his search for art. Though evil lurks in the background, it never becomes ugly and the joke turns on our narrator.

I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a suspensful, New Yorky read.