THE UNPLEASANTNESS AT THE BELLONA CLUB wasn't the best mystery novel that I've ever read, but it was certainly enjoyable enough that I didn't feel I was wasting my energy. The characters are, at times, clichéd, but I was entertained by all of them enough not to be too bothered by any lack of real substance. It's a tale of murder, deceit and money, but is told with enough whimsy to make it fully enjoyable.

Despite some initial false assumptions on my part, the plot managed to keep me mostly surprised much of the time. At first glance, I thought that I was in for a fairly tedious journey, as I wasn't very far into the book when I suddenly figured out what I assumed was a large part of the mystery. Faced with the prospect of having to read through the entire rest of the story pretending not to know how the murderer had gotten away with it, I began to wonder if perhaps the remainder wouldn't be worth reading. To my great surprise, while the portion of the mystery that I figured out was fairly well signposted, it didn't turn out to be as important as I had anticipated, and I was greatly pleased that Lord Peter figured out the puzzle not long after I did. This allowed the story to turn into directions that I hadn't anticipated, and brought me back into the narrative. There are several clever little moments of storytelling that successfully managed to keep my on my toes, which is an ideal situation for any detective story.

This was the first Dorothy Sayers book that I've read, and I was surprised at how much of the story was conveyed purely through the dialog. There is almost no description at all and there were times where it seemed as though I was reading a television or a film script. (Incidentally, this is probably why the series translates so well to visual mediums.) This did contribute to a feeling of triviality, but it did make the book pass by much more quickly. This is not a book to be slowly picked apart, but rather one to be enjoyed quickly, in large gulps. The fast-pace adds to the fanciful flavor and allows the story to rapidly wash over the reader.

I found THE UNPLEASANTNESS AT THE BELLONA CLUB to be a fun and enjoyable, if light, detective adventure. It's a great little piece of fiction to read on a lazy afternoon, and it should be recommended to any fan of mystery novels. A short, and fairly unambitious novel, but definitely quite enjoyable.

This book shows the charming and dry British humor. The setting: an old austere British club in 1928. On Remembrance Day, three men are sitting down to lunch. One notices an old soldier sitting not far away. He has a newpaper in front of him and a drink to his side. He is quite dead, and so the Unpleasantness begins. Wonderful

When Lord Peter Wimsey comes down to the Bellona club to dine with an old friend he little expected to find the 90 year old General Fentiman sitting quietly by the fire in full rigor mortis. Nor, did he expect to be confronted with a case about which one of the General or his sister, Lady Dormer, predeceased the other. But, seeing that it was a matter of some half million pounds he was delighted to oblige old Mr. Murbles, the family solicitor.

It turns out that establishing Fentiman's time of death is going to be a major feat. No one, including his heirs, the staff of the Bellona Club and most of London seems to recall what the General was doing that morning, or when he showed up, opened his newspaper and promptly expired. Worse, what few facts that Wimsey can put together convince him that something was very, very wrong with Fentiman's timely ticking off. Suddenly this is no longer a case of friendly detection but a serious investigation into a murder.

'The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club' was one of Dorothy Sayers' early smash hits. It shows off Wimsey's charming urbanity against the gemlike setting of his friends and cohorts, only striking serious chords when grim necessity rears its monocled head. Wimsey doesn't act quite as foolish as he was prone to in past novels, which makes him likeable as well as witty. The other regular characters have also acquired some extra depth that makes everyone a bit more believable. Everyone but the bit players, of course. Each of those is, as usual, a quick, delightful pastiche, one of Sayers greatest talents.

This is one of Sayers' most memorable books, and, despite a plot that is a little too transparent, is one of her most re-readable. The odd thing about a Sayers mystery story is how unimportant it is whether you know or can guess the murderer. 'Who' is less important than 'how' in these tales, and neither is as important as the balletic interaction of the players, most of whom you would like to find in your sitting room - it you had a sitting room large enough, that is.

This is also the first book that displays Wimsey's softer nature with the ladies. While Marjorie Phelps is not destined to become Lord Peter's great love, we see glints of the Peter to come. He shows a fair and attentive style without a hint of macho that will serve him well in his trials to come. I am tempted to say that, if you don't enjoy this book, there is no hope for you as a Sayers fan. That's not completely true, but ' The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club' is a completely representative Sayers effort and one of my perennial favorites.

Dorothy L Sayers provided some of the great treasures to be found in the so-called "Golden Age of Detective Fiction". A classical scholar with a formidable intellect, she was an eminent practitioner and an eloquent critic of detective fiction. Her feisty, detective fiction writing character, Harriet Vane, and her aristocratic, monocled, amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, may be found together for the second time in her 1932 novel "Have His Carcase".

On a walking holiday, while recovering from a court case in which she was alleged to have killed her lover, Harriet Vane discovers the body of a man. It is lying on rocks on a beach, close to low tide level. The evidence suggests suicide. After taking photographs with her camera, finding a cut throat razor and removing a shoe from the corpse, Harriet vainly tries to enlist help in moving the body before it is washed away by the incoming tide. The local police force is alerted and so is Lord Peter Wimsey.

This is a long novel. Interest focuses not only on the solution to the mystery but also on the likelihood of Wimsey succeeding with his wish to marry Harriet. There is witty dialogue, there are fulsome reports from a range of eccentric characters, there are descriptions of the human anatomy and how it responds to the throat being cut, there is an interminable attempt to decode a ciphered letter, and there are classical quotations provided at the start of each chapter. There is little dramatic tension, no suspense, and no thrills. Dorothy L Sayers was a cultivated, fluent writer, sometimes boring but never banal.

If your tolerance of boredom is low, but your credit balance at the bank is high, then invest in the audio tape reading of the book provided by Ian Carmichael. English actor Ian Carmichael has had great success associated with various adaptations of the novels of Dorothy L Sayers. He brings wonderful energy and gusto to this full-length reading, enough to keep you delighted for more than fifteen hours.

All of Dorothy Sayers' mysteries are worth reading. She has a command of English and a story-telling ability that makes her, in my opinion, one of the two greatest mystery writers of the twentieth century. Most of Ms. Sayers' mysteries feature Lord Peter, second son of the Duke of Denver. He is one of the most delightful characters in English literature and well worth meeting in any of Ms. Sayers books. Most of the Lord Peter mysteries stand alone and can be read without worrying about sequence. However four of the mysteries involve Harriet Vane, and for maximum enjoyment, those four mysteries should be read in order. Strong Poison describes the first meeting between Harriet and Lord Peter. Have His Carcase explores the relationship between the two of them as they investigate the death of a man whose body Harriet discovers while hiking along a deserted beach. The interaction between the two of them can best be understood and appreciated if Strong Poison is read first. Have His Carcase may be the least enjoyable of the four romance-mysteries involving Harriet, but this book leads to the final two books in the series, and those two books are the finest romance-mysteries ever written.

Personally I have always been an Agatha the Christie fan. My first encounter with Dorothy L. Sayers was the Mobile Mystery Theater series showing on PBS. Unfortunately I did not realize that my video player was also a recorder until the "Gaudy Night" was on Mystery Theater. In that sense I was lucky to copy the complete three hour "Gaudy Night." However it was too late for "Strong Poison" and "Have His Carcase". They never produced "Busman's Honeymoon".

Naturally the TV media cannot fill in all the details that you would pick up from reading the book. So I read the book. This added more depth to the story, but now I appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers more than Agatha Christie. But Dorothy not only fleshes her characters out better but her side trips into philosophy and psychology make the story that much more interesting. And just when you say what is the relevance to this conversation it is wrapped up in the final solution.

We are in luck as this is an unabridged tape of "Have His Carcase" The reader Is Ian Carmichael the first TV Lord Peter Wimsey. It makes a good compliment to the book.

This is the second of the book series. The story is complete and can be used as a stand-alone story. The notorious Harriet Vane is out for a walk and takes a nap. She wakes up and finds (you guest it) a body. If not for her trusty camera no one would believe her. As it is the authorities think it was suicide. Wimsey thinks it is murder. Naturally everyone, especially the main suspect has an airtight alibi. The real interests is the interaction between Lord Peter and Harriet.

This was an excellent historical record of probably the greatest American that ever lived. However, it has long, complex, diffcult to read wording that makes it somewhat labor-intensive reading. The content is great, but there are far easier to read (and understand) books about Lincoln.

interesting in that it was written from a british perspective. i have read several biographies on lincoln and would recommend this book as an introductory volume for those who want to study lincoln, but, as an important volume for those who study general presidential history, civil war, and general american history.

Though it is dated in some of its facts and assessments,Lord Charnwoods classic study of Lincoln remains one of the dozen or so greatest books ever written about our greatest President.What sets it apart from most other studies of the sixteenth President is the attention it gives the intellectual and spiritual underpinnings of Lincoln's life and actions. It is, in short a work of philosophical history, not a dry recitation of facts. Charnwood is interested in the moral meaning of democracy and the scope and limits of democratic leadership. He performs his task beautifully. I , for one , found his old-fashioned Victorian prose a joy to read, and a relief from the cliche' ridden jargon that too often passes for literate prose today. A great book by a foriegn observer of America, fully worthy of being placed beside Tocqueville and Bryce.

Byron's poems don't seem to seek to make any statements. Unlike his Romantic contemporaries Keats, Coleride, and Wordsworth, (even Shelley, to some extent) Byron puts forth no idealogy as to what poetry should be. Instead, he relies on certain aspects of that Romantic idealogy, such as frequent parallels between the state of man and the state of nature... however, with few excceptions, this fails to create unique insights, comments, or even descriptions in his writings. What results is florid, wordy, rhyming travel writing, often promoting British or macho ideals. This edition receives a low grade because it fails to lead me to any better of an impression of a poet that has obviously been influential and looked on as an esteemed figure for so many years. This book can be read as an interesting historical document, and, perhaps most importantly, as Romantic poetry falls out of favor, Byron's poetry as collected within helps to explain the reason why.

I've been reading this book over the past few days, and already Byron has become one of my dozen or so favorite poets. The third canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" is just brilliant, and many of his shorter poems are unforgettable once read.

But in the process of reading I have come across one problem with the editing of Wolfson and Manning - a problem of notes. All they provide in that way is a short introduction-like essay to each poem in the back of the book, that discusses the history of the poem a little, its reception, and some of its themes. But there are no notes to individual passages, as there are in the other Penguin Classics volume of "Don Juan." Where this becomes a big problem is when Byron quotes a foreign language such as Italian, as he does fairly often - although the editors provide translations for the foreign language epigraphs to the poems, they have none for any foreign language quotations that occur in his notes. Thus the point Byron is trying to make is sometimes lost on a modern reader who doesn't know Greek, or Italian, or whatever.

The poems included in this volume are [long poems in capitals, short poems in quotation marks]: "A Fragment," "To Woman," "The Cornelian," "To Caroline," ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS, "Lines to Mr. Hodgson," "Maid of Athens, ere we part," "Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos," "To Thyrza," CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE: Cantos 1-4, "An Ode to the Framers of the Liberty Bill," "Lines to a Lady Weeping," THE WALTZ, "Remember Thee! Remember Thee," THE GIAOUR, THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS, THE CORSAIR, "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte," "Stanzas for Music," "She walks in beauty," LARA, "The Destruction of Sennacherib," "Napoleon's Farewell," "From the French," THE SIEGE OF CORINTH, "When we two parted," "Fare thee well," "Prometheus," THE PRISONER OF CHILLON, "Darkness," "Epistle to Augusta," "Lines," MANFRED, "So, we'll go no more a roving," "Epistle from Mr. Murray to Dr. Polidori," BEPPO, "Epistle to Mr. Murray," MAZEPPA, "Stanzas to the Po," "The Isles of Greece," "Francesca of Rimini," "Stanzas," SARDANAPALUS, "Who kill'd John Keats?," THE BLUES, THE VISION OF JUDGEMENT, and "On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year."

A legend in his own lifetime, Lord Byron stamped contemporary Western culture with the mark of his dark imagination, and his poetry has lost none of its iconoclastic power today. Without a doubt, this is the finest single-volume edition of Byron currently available. By omitting the rambling satirical romp "Don Juan" (widely available separately), editors Wolfson and Manning leave themselves enough space to provide a truly representative selection of Byron's greatest works. Jerome McGann's "Oxford Authors" volume is a strong competitor, and benefits from superior notes, but only this Penguin collection offers unabridged texts of the three Oriental Tales with which Byron followed "The Giaour"-"The Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," and "Lara"-all of which are thrilling narratives, and indispensable for tracing the development of that towering figure of English Romanticism, the Byronic Hero. Thus, this edition presents (for the first time in one volume) a complete portrait of the Byronic Hero in his many guises, from vampire ("The Giaour") to pirate ("The Corsair") to necromancer ("Manfred") to fallen angel ("Cain"). Furthermore, Wolfson and Manning supply the complete text of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (the work that established Byron's reputation in his own lifetime), along with many other rousing verse romances, including "The Siege of Corinth," "The Prisoner of Chillon," and "Mazeppa," as well as a generous selection of Byron's most arresting shorter poems, such as "The Destruction of Sennacherib," "Promethus," and the nightmarish, end-of-the-world fantasy, "Darkness." Fans of Byron's ironic mode will welcome the inclusion of three of his satirical works; however, the strength of this volume rests on the fact that it presents Byron at his most Byronic. These are his most sublime creations-the works that defined the Romanticism movement-and to read them is to discover anew why he is still ranked, throughout the world, as the greatest English-language writer after Shakespeare.

The story is offbeat and rather touching: The chickens who live on the Tweedy Farm are doomed to be made into chicken pies if they stay there much longer! Ginger, a clever hen desperate to feel of green grass under her feet, hatches escape plan after escape with no luck....until Rocky, a dashing rooster, literally flies into her life! Will these chicks ever escape the evil farm with their feathers still intact?

The book is a simple retelling of the irreverent film and is easy reading for the younger set. It's sweet, gloriously silly and a wonderful companion to the film. I especially enjoyed the claymation pictures which do a wonderful job of capturing the moment with just one glance. I'd read it to you kids at bedtime.

One side effect though -- don't be surprised if your kids refuse to eat poultry after reading this book!

I find this book refreaching,and that the whole family can enjoy reading it together. I would recomend it for young and old alike.

If you're only interested in short stories featuring Lord Peter, be advised that 1) this book only contains 2 Lord Peter stories, 2) the complete set of such short stories is available in the collection _Lord Peter_, and 3) that this book doesn't overlap with _Lord Peter Views the Body_, _Hangman's Holiday_, or _Striding Folly_ (which together contain the stories making up _Lord Peter_).

The Wimsey stories in this volume are not Sayers' best, but if you give the other stories herein a chance, the book pulls its weight.

No one has to date assembled a collection featuring only Montague Egg, partly because there are so few stories featuring him (5 appear in this volume). Monty is a traveling salesman for Plummett & Rose (fine wines and spirits). Sayers had definite opinions about making sure that amateur sleuths had legitimate reasons to travel, meet the necessary people (what better person to visit the local pub?), and so on.

The remaining 10 stories feature neither major character. Sayers liked to have fun with the conventional formula of a detective story; sometimes a death isn't murder, or a mystery doesn't involve a death. Sometimes nobody's guilty of anything, or (treason!) they actually get away with it.

"In the Teeth of the Evidence" - Wimsey's dentist has been called upon to identify one of his predecessor's patients from dental work - a fellow dentist found dead in the charred remains of his car. Wimsey comes along, never having had a corpse-in-blazing-garage case before.

"Absolutely Elsewhere" - Wimsey and Parker are up against what appears to be a cast-iron alibi.

"A Shot at Goal" - The head of the local soccer committee (a big man at the local factory) is found with his head beaten in after being called away from the pub where Monty had been trying out his sales pitch. One is spoilt for choice for motive here.

"Dirt Cheap" - Monty and his fellow traveling salesman are stuck at the Griffin, since their usual hotel has had a fire; it's no surprise that Pringle (after his heavy meal of bad food) should be making noises in the night, enough to wake Monty next door. But the next morning he finds Pringle dead and robbed of his jewelry sample-case - the man he spoke to through the door in the night must have been the killer.

"Bitter Almonds" - Upon hearing that an eccentric old customer has died suddenly in a nearby town, Monty attends the inquest - partly beccause the deceased was drinking one of Monty's products when he died.

"False Weight" - Monty is called on to identify the corpse of Wagstaffe, a traveling salesman for a jeweller's firm who had a wife in every other town on his route. The trick here isn't to find someone with a motive, but to find a solution that fits all the physical evidence in the bar where he died.

"The Professor's Manuscript" - A colleague, upon failing to sell soft drinks to the professor who just moved in, passes him along to Monty as a prospect. Monty makes the sale, but notices several incongruities about the elderly professor and his home. See if you can spot them before they're pointed out to you.

"The Milk-Bottles" - Hector Puncheon (a young reporter from the Lord Peter stories) thinks he's onto a hot story when a young couple disappears from their apartment and the milk-bottles begin piling up outside.

"Dilemma" - Everyone's heard the question: if you could have a million dollars by pushing a button and killing a stranger a thousand miles away, would you do it? In this case, a doctor had to choose between saving 1) a dead man's research on sleeping sickness or 2) a drunken butler on the night of a fire.

"An Arrow O'er the House" - Failed author Mr. Podd begins wracking his brain for flamboyant schemes to draw publishers' attention to his work (other than dismal rejection notices).

"Scrawns" - Susan took the job of house-parlourmaid at Scrawns without an interview, not expecting such a gloomy, run-down, deserted country house...

"Nebuchadnezzar" - This game is charades raised to about the 3rd power - act a word, whose initial letter, in turn, forms part of the final word. Markham, whose wife Jane died of gastroenteritis about 6 months ago, begins to brood while watching her old friends act out Jezebel (J), Adam (A), ...

"The Inspiration of Mr. Budd" - Mr. Budd, a skilled barber who is losing his struggle against the flashy establishment across the street, yearned for a chance at the evening paper's reward posted for help in catching a murderer. But how could he earn it against such a strong and brutal man, anyway?

"Blood Sacrifice" - The playwright hated what actor-manager Garrick Drury had done to his first professional sale, although it played to packed houses. His generous compensation merely meant that he had no leverage to protest the mutation of the script into an almost unrecognizable form, which was ruining his reputation among the Bloomsbury types he moved among. (If the playwright's character interests you, try Sayers' _Strong Poison_, whose artistic crowd produced similar unsaleable work, or _Gaudy Night_, where professional ethics have a major role in the story.)

"Suspicion" - Mr. Mummery has been very careful to stick to a health-food diet lately, since his stomach began playing him up. He and his wife had accepted their new and experienced cook as a gift from heaven, without checking up her references, but now he's feeling uneasy.

"The Leopard Lady" - As a Smith & Smith (Removals) story, the reader should come into this story aware that, unless a client turns nasty, nobody will be charged, let alone convicted, for the removal. In this instance, Tressidier stands as guardian and residuary legatee for his small nephew, but Mr. Smith knows just how much of Tressidier's own money was lost in the Megatherium crash and at the track. (They never approach anyone unless they're sure of him.)

"The Cyprian Cat" - The narrator is speaking to his defense counsel: "It's funny that one should be hanged for shooting at a cat." (A Cyprian cat is actually a tabby.) This story breaks the rules about not throwing in magical overtones. If you like it, you might consider Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls" or Howard's "The Hyena".

This is one of my personal favorite Dorothy Sayers books although it always gives me the creeps whenever I read it

While all six essays in this slender volume will prove of interest to the reader seeking more background on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic story, I found the essay by Janet Blumberg, "The Literary Background of The Lord of the Rings" especially valuable. Prof. Blumberg not only explains the influences of Anglo-Saxon literature such as "Beowulf" and High Medieval literature such as "Sir Gawain and the Green knight" on elements in LOTR, but also offers a credible explanation for one of the most remarked about elements in the books: the absence of any overt religious practice or worship. This essay alone makes this slender volume a valuable addition to the library of any Tolkien fan.

This one is a real gem ! It has one section devoted to non-Lord-Peter-Wimsey adventures and the stories are actually funny and have the most unexpected endings. Lots of fun to read and guess along. It also has the smart salesman, Montague Egg, running around in another section solving crimes. On the whole, a varied experience.

Peter Hocken provides an excellent account of what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. This book is not for everybody, but it is for those who are seeking stronger ways of discipleship and are willing to face their own sinfulness. This book will not steer anyone in the wrong direction

Simplicity at its finest: Chinese on one page, English on the other. Allows you to see exactly what Ricci was up to without a commentary pushing one's political agenda. That is, reading the text of "True Meaning" for oneself, one can conclude the truth about Matteo Ricci. He did not misunderstand the chinese, nor force them into conversion (one man against millions?) as the 'liberals' claim. Rather his understanding, respect and love for them was profound. He did not "water-down" or "sell-out" the Catholic faith by conceding or accomodating too much as so-called 'conservatives' claim. He did what any TRADITIONALIST would do: he became all things to all men. And like St. Paul in the Agora, he presented the Real Christ in such a way that Christ was a)understandable to the people listening and b)true to the person of Christ...'Take Him or leave Him, folks...Here He is.'

I specifically use the word traditional because it is, in fact, the tradition of The Church to explore the depths of 'the other.' Christ is the fulfillment of all of humankind, and how can the Church introduce Christ to a new land without understanding what is is Christ will fulfill? It cannot.

What we read in our history texts was anti-Catholic propaganda. The Church did not roll out of Europe in a blaze of fire destroying all others it touched. This book is a good example of what the churchmen have REALLY done. No burnings at the stake, no witch hunts, no genocide. No. What history books won't tell you is that Matteo Ricci and others like him loved others so much they gave their lives in service: intellectual, material, scientific, and not least--spiritual. This book is the proof.