Stephan Schofield did a great deal of work in garnering this collection of interviews, essays, and letters. Most of the chapters are memoirs by those who knew Lewis, either as pupils or as colleagues. Several intriguing anecdotes emerge from these pieces, and the book is balanced since the contributors are quite candid, giving Lewis both praise and censure. For those interested in C.S. Lewis, this is fun to read. Unfortunately, Bridge Publishers did a poor job putting the book together, with numerous typos, editing errors (such as combining letters from two people into one), and small type. Still, if you can look past these pecadillos, this is an enjoyable book.

This is a book for seasoned investors, brokers, and syndicators. It contains several hundred forms and checklists that will make sure you never forget an important element of the buying and selling process. However, it is not a "stand alone" book on real estate investing, but a book designed to accompany other texts on the subject.

I am a big fan of the Rough Guide series and of their philosophy of including socio-political commentary, to remind travelers that the world isn't just for show. And what the China guide does well it does VERY well, with great detail. But my wife and I took both this book and a competitor's guidebook for our monthlong China trip, and Rough Guide contained maybe 1/3 as many things to see and do, and left many places to stay off the list altogether. Worse, some maps were just plain wrong. A travel guidebook that you find yourself leaving in the hotel room is not a good one.

The Rough Guides are considered among the "cream of the crop" in the guidebook world, and this book is no exception. I used it extensively in the planning phase of my recent month-long trip to China, and it was very helpful.

The background sections of the book are outstanding, giving the reader a solid overview of Chinese history and culture. The primary sites of interest to travelers are adequately covered as well, and so the book is very helpful in planning one's itinerary.

The main drawback of the volume is it's weight. If you are backpacking in China, as I was, this book is pretty heavy to be lugging around. Therefore, unless you are staying in China more than a couple of weeks, you might consider looking at the smaller city guides.....or ripping the necessary sections out of this book and packing only those in your rucksack.

Highly recommended for pre-trip planning at home. Recommended for packing and taking to China *if* you are going on an extended trip to the country.

I traveled extensively throughout China in 1998, and I found the roughguide a much more practical book for getting around. The charts inside the guide allow you to find the information quickly, whereas the other popular guide forces you to flip through pages with apparent random entires of Chinese Characters, which can be frustrating and stressful when you climb into a chinese taxi in the middle of the road, and you need to show the driver where you want to go. Although lonely planet seems to have more detailed information, the well organized layout of the Roughguide makes it ten times more desireable when your actually on the road. I'm looking forward to the new edition, as I left my roughguide in China with a friend who only had a lonely planet!

The Red Badge of Courage is an interesting story in many ways. The tale follows a young Union soldier named Henry Fleming for a day or two as he cuts his teeth in Civil War battle. Simple enough. But the intrigue is how author Stephen Crane--born nearly two decades after the war--could have written such an accurate-sounding depiction of battle. We read the book in present day with the benefit of having viewed countless images of Civil War battles in movies, television, and real-life reenactments, and after reading many books on the subject (i.e., The Killer Angels, The Last Full Measure, The Civil War, etc.). It's easy to forget that he didn't witness the war, nor had he witnessed any war at that point in his life. And publishing it in 1895, Crane never had the luxury of movies. Yet, Crane's account still rings true. The battle scenes come from a vivid imagination and, no doubt, newspaper articles and old photos. It is a commendable accomplishment that has stood the test of time.

Another interesting aspect is that the book is not plot-based in the mold of a Dickens novel. It is essentially a "slice of life" piece. Crane drops us into the action just before Fleming faces his first battle. We aren't told where or when this battle takes place. We don't know who the senior commanders involved are or whether the scene is fact-based or total fiction. And it doesn't matter. The particulars on who's fighting, why they're fighting, and whether they're winning is immaterial to Crane. His focus is not on the glory or spectacle of war, nor the ultimate goals. His book is a study in fear and courage. Henry Fleming is scared to die. But he's more afraid that he'll panic and run, exposing cowardice. Death is not something the living can comprehend. Shame in the face of comrades is.

There is also an interesting contrast between the gore of battle and Crane's poetic prose. Not a book that will change your life, but worth the quick read it presents. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

Imagine standing in the middle of a battlefield having to watch your friends suffer and eventually die from bullet shots. This is a typical scene from the Civil War, which had the most loss of American life than any other war. "The Red Badge of Courage" horrifically, yet accurately, depicts the true nature of war. Crane uses excellent imagery to describe what is happening in the mind of the protagonist Henry Fleming, a young soldier. Although the language is somewhat difficult to comprehend because of the dialogue, the story itself is not difficult at all because of the intensity of battlefield and descriptiveness of the scenery. Crane's descriptions make it clear that war is a traumatizing experience for everyone. Although the experience may be disturbing, cowards should not be involved in war, as Henry beautifully demonstrates. While most war stories present heroes of the war, Henry is portrayed as the exact opposite. He starts out as a boy going into war for the first time, and at one point runs away from all the fighting. In time, he matures through experience while facing the horrors of war. He eventually desires the red badge of courage, a wound that would mark his involvement in the war. All history lovers and those who love bloody and gruesome "Braveheart" type stories should read "The Red Badge of Courage."

Why is the Red Badge of Courage so hard to read until about the middle of the book? I think it's because Crane throws us into the world of fear in the first half - fear, cowardice, panic, the confusion and disorganization of war. We're not used to being treated like this, either by books or the real world. I can identify with Crane because the first half of my life was like that. It's OK to be afraid. You can even start reading from the middle and eventually go backwards if it's frustrating. As for life, at some point in life, if you really keep trying, fear gets tiresome and repetitive. You begin to despise yourself as a coward, and you only see images of cowardice around you. The uselessness of following the crowd and some of the fairy tales you learned hit you like a brick. You see too much destruction, whether in hot wars or cold wars, industry or the academic world. One day, when you have nothing left to lose, you try a new strategy called courage. You might feel a lot of anger when doing it, but you have to eventually learn to act out of calmness and yes, even love. You fight back because of the things and people you've lost. You become a Veteran, whether in war or in peace with illness like Crane himself. You learn that there are things more important than your own life. Then you're like Audie Murphy, Mahatma Gandhi, Stephen Crane, Galileo Galilei, Saint Thomas More. And the strangest thing of all is that they're right. There are things more important than your own life. One of them is called Courage.