The novel begins after his rescue, in the office of a military psychologist assigned to treat the uncommunicative Lt. James Lockwood, sole survivor of the Royal Navy's secret mission to the forbidding continent. The doctor, directed to break through Lockwood's suspect amnesia and uncover the results of his top-secret mission, sympathizes with his patient's obvious trauma and recommends he be left alone.

Later, the case haunts him. "I am afraid that if Lockwood keeps his secrets (whatever they are) perpetually bottled up, they will become an incubus, like a dead albatross tied for the rest of his life round his neck."

The novel then drops back to the beginning of the mission, ostensibly a military weather station, but also an urgent, secret hunt to find uranium for Britain's nuclear bomb project. Meanwhile, a German U-boat, forced south by an Allied ship, discovers the station and destroys it, killing everyone but the commander, John Ede, who is badly wounded, and two men out fetching rock samples, Lockwood and Petty-Officer Ramsden.

Returning to the devastation, Lockwood and Ramsden realize their only hope is to reach the Antarctic Peninsula before it's iced in - 200 miles in two or three weeks. Carrying their helpless commander and the uranium rock samples will render their task even more hopeless. But Lockwood cannot abandon Ede and Ede will not abandon the uranium, so the two able-bodied men take turns dragging the heavy sledge.

Weather favors them, giving rise to hope. Each day Ede grows weaker but remains alive. Ramsden, more practical than Lockwood but accustomed to following orders, would abandon Ede to save themselves and their mission but Lockwood will not. Their streak of luck falters, fails, and the continent batters them.

Marshall slowly strips Lockwood of the accoutrements of civilization - bodily comfort, companionship, food, light. Isolated in the frozen dark, on a continent abandoned by all forms of life, Lockwood falls back on the primal instinct to survive. His mind becomes his only solace and his greatest peril.

The vast, majestic, terrifying beauty of Antarctica comes alive in this penetrating and sympathetic portrayal of a man thrown upon his deepest resources. Instinct and spiritual epiphany meet and mesh in a manner impossible in civilized society, a contradiction Lockwood must reconcile upon his return. But can he? And if he could, would anyone understand?

Marshall's plain, simple style, and attention to detail, reflective of Lockwood's mind, makes a perfect foil for the immensity of the landscape and the man's ordeal. Powerful, suspenseful and moving, "White-Out" succeeds on many levels.

This is a hilarious book! I enjoyed reading it to my 8 year old son and he loved it. He thought it was so funny and not all scary. He loves scary stories, however, he did not find this book to be scary at all. I can see why some people might object to this book. It makes reference to a seance and a medium, but the book references it in a funny way and not at all serious. I would read this book to my classroom. I feel the children would enjoy and get a kick out of this book.

The real gold in this guide, however, is the sheer wealth of information. For instance, I personally didn't know one lock from another (other than a deadbolt is better), and "Home Security" has a whole page full of illustrations with pros and cons of each type of lock and where they are best suited for in your home. It gets down to details such as shape of the lock's bolt, and how far into the doorjam it should go. "Home Security" also answered the simple question of which way should the door swing --in or out -- to provide the best security. (It's in.)

This book is a great way to get you started. The information is basic and shows you in which direction to go, and how to think about the most common ways thieves get in and take things. In fact, I am in the research stages of building my own house, and for others like me, this will prove invaluable, because we can build the security in as we go along instead of doing a "quick fix" to badly secured features later.

Subjects covered by the book, in no particular order, are:

Do a home inventory and a "security tour" to determine what you have and the weak spots in the home
Childproofing
Insurance
Alarm systems -- the biggest single section of the book
Securing windows and doors all over the home, including basement
Locks
Fences and lighting
Fire safety, including types fire extinguishers and smoke detectors
Apartment and condo dwellers
Securing special targets (guns, jewelry)
How to convert a regular closet to a security closet
How to get into the habit of security
Vacation security
Security when you are at home
Some thoughts on handicapped-accessible home design

Of course, my nephew was absolutely correct. In an effort to rectify my obvious educational deficiency, I immediately embarked on a reading plan which led me to "What Kind of Nation", where I discovered that Thomas Jefferson also didn't along with John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

By the time I got to this book I had a pretty good feel for the politics of the period, having read "Founding Brothers" by Joseph Ellis, "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington" by Richard Brookhiser, "Alexander Hamilton: American" by Richard Brookhiser and "James Madison" by Garry Wills. I believe this background helped me to maximize my enjoyment of "What Kind of Nation" because I was able to focus on Marshall's brilliance and perseverance in establishing the authority of the Supreme Court on an equal footing with the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Jefferson's antics were amusing, but old news. The way that Marshall dealt with Jefferson who was, after all, the President of the United States during the first 8 years of Marshall's 34 years as Chief Justice, is fascinating.

James Simon does a great job of telling the story without getting overly technical with the legal side of things. I think he strikes just the right balance, so that the lay reader (i.e., non-lawyer) can appreciate the significance of Marshall's extraordinary accomplishments.

Marshall scoured Scott's unpublished diaries and other sources (all thankfully listed in a comprehensive bibliography) before embarking on four sparate trips. The most straightforward of these was a journey from Rangoon upriver to the old imperial capital of Mandalay and then into the some of the hinterlands. Another trip involved travlling through northern Thailand to the border, where ethnic Shan rebels are attempting to resist Burmese army genocide. A third trip took him from northern Thailand across the border and into the hills near the Laotian and Chinese border. And the most harrowing trip involved slipping across the Chinese border and into ethnic Wa territory where he searches for a legendary lake from which the Wa say they evolved from tadpoles. These trips are crisply related, intertwined with accounts of Scott's travels and life, and background history.

While Marshall certainly doesn't defend British colonialism, he does credit it for introducing modernity to the region and for creating a nation-allbeit juryrigged -from disparate tribes. Marshall lays Burma/Myanmar's current status as human rights disaster area and its herion-exporting based economy firmly at the feet of a military junta that seized power in 1962 and has held an iron grip on the country ever since. An iron grip that is assisted by ethnic Wa drug lords, whose operations rival that of their more famous Colombian counterparts. Burma/Myanmar's economy is wholy dependent on the exporting of illegal drugs by Wa drug lords in collusion with the military. Historically this has been heroin, but in recent years, mehtamphedamine and ecstacy production is said to rival the most sophisticated European operations, and the drug lords have branched out into music and software piracy. With the country's money and guns all linked together in such tidy self-perpetuating interests, it's difficult to see how the stanglehold will ever be broken short of outside intervention.

I have visited Burma in the past few years and Marshall's descriptions of people and places were quite evocative of what I saw. Hopefully, the same will be true for other readers, regardless of whether they have traveled there or not.

Focusing on Sir George Scott, British Empire-builder of a hundred years ago, Marshall paints a vivid picture of Burma today. His writing is extraordinarily full of life, leading the reader from sympathy to outrage, from suspense to laughter. This is not a book you want to give to someone recuperating from surgery: Marshall is one of the funniest writers I have ever read, and would play havoc on surgical stitches.

One point I would like to debate: his discussion of the Kayan/Padaung families working for the Hupin Hotel in Yawnghwe/Nyaungshwe. I know the family that runs the Hupin personally -- several branches of the clan, actually, and count several of the staff among my friends. Yes, they are not running the hotel for their health, and yes, they are making a profit, but in all sincerity, I do not think their dealings with the Kayan are as heartless as Marshall depicts.

There are two families of Kayan by Inle Lake. Marshall met the ones hired by the Hupin, not those moved in by the government. The Hupin went into the mountains and made a deal with the family: they would build a house for them, give the men jobs in factories around Yawnghwe, the women would work for the hotel, and the kids would go to school at Hupin's expense. They are paid monthly salaries and medical expenses, and any weddings and what-not are paid for by the Hupin. Some of the children have reached high school, and are still going strong. Few children in the countryside get so much schooling. One little girl envied all the attention her big sister got from tourists because of the rings on her neck. The little girl raised such a fuss that her parents agreed to let her have rings on her neck, even though she had not reached the traditional age for that. BTW: she refuses to go to school.

The price for a photo with the Padaung is US$3: this is split 3 ways, between the guide, the hotel, and the Padaung (US$1 is a good day's wage for someone working in Yangon, a week's salary for the countryside.) The Padaung are free to go back to Kayah state. When they go, they bring handicrafts back to the hotel, which they sell to tourists; this money goes into their own pockets. My friends from the Hupin asked the Kayan to lower the price of the bracelets I was buying, and let me tell you, it was a struggle! These are not listless zombies meekly obeying a master's wishes.

Marshall describes a concrete compound. I am not sure what he is talking about, unless it is the area outside their compound, beyond the bamboo bridge. Their wooden house was built Kayan style, in accordance with their specific wishes. They are an extremely conservative tribe. Marshall makes much of the women not leaving their compound. The Padaung are shy people, and the women do not speak Burmese, so they are not willing to range far. Also, I have heard from separate, unrelated sources that there is a danger for Padaung women to roam, because there have been cases of their being -- not exactly kidnapped, but taken off for show in Europe.

Marshall says "the hotel staff member broke into a practiced spiel." We may not be talking about the same man, I did not speak English with the Padaung man I went with, but I suspect the "practiced spiel" may be memorized word for word by someone who speaks minimal English, and may not have confidence in leaving the beaten path.

I deeply feel that the Hupin is more than fair in its dealings with its staff, whether they be Burman, Shan, Chinese, Kayan, or others. When I told the Hupin family what Marshall had written about them, they were quite hurt. Frankly, they are making enough money from tourists, they do not feel the need to exploit the workers. Marshall went to Burma expecting to see the disadvantaged being exploited, so when he saw the disadvantaged, he assumed they must be getting exploited. In the case of the Hupin, I can vouch that he was wrong.

All in all, though, this is an excellent picture of Burma, including parts most of us will never see. I hope Marshall is hard at work on his next book. This is an author to keep an eye on.

Don't waste your money on this ...

This book was originally published in the 1977, and it's amazing to see how innocent its prose is in contrast to kids' books today. But this book is never dull or didactic, and it will delight the entire family over and over, while its simple dialogue will thrill early readers (when the lights go out, the Stupids simply declare, "We must be dead."!!!). I'm thrilled this book has been reprinted; we will definitely be hunting down other "Stupids" books in future.

The stupid step, out Written by Harry Allad, was the funniest book I have ever read. Stanley Q Stupid had an idea. He called all stupid and said 'we are stepping out's they took a bath. Petunia asked way there wasn't water. The reason was that with water they would get their clothes wet. They got in the car and went to their grandparents house. The grandpa didn't know who they were. 'Where is grandma? Asked buster. In the closet, said grandpa. Then they left. They saw themselves in the mirror. 'Don't stare at those people, kids " they said. Then they went to eat and then they went home. They got ready for bed and thanked god for a nice day liked it because it was funny and it had a kid's sense of humor like when the dog drove the car. I recommend this book to people who like to laugh and be silly. You should read this book it is great!