The title refers to the eight locales from which each of these interwoven stories takes its title. The crime-tinged tales are all generally set in Butetown, a working-class, largely Caribbean neighborhood in Cardiff, Wales. Characters move in and out between the stories, most of which are set contemporarily and involve, crime, drugs, and sex. While there is an air of seediness about the shady lives everyone leads, Williams gives each story just enough humor and humanity to keep the collection light. Fun stuff. If you like this, definitely check out his subsequent novel, Cardiff Dead, which features some of the same characters (pothead Col, lesbian pimp Bobby, and heavy Kenny Ibdullah to name a few). Also check out Williams' debut novel, Faithless and his earlier travelogue of American crime writers, Into the Badlands. One of the stories in this volume previously appeared in the Fresh Blood 2 anthology.

'In FIVE PUBS, TWO BARS AND A NIGHTCLUB, John Williams captures the voices of the last-chanceres, the near-losers, and the dispossessed, and gives them dignity and life. Like Damon Runyon before him, Williams creates a rich, dimensional tableau, a human comedy for the ages.' -George P. Pelecanos, author of THE SWEET FOREVER

'The most undecaffeinated voice this side of Dylan Thomas.' -Kinky Friedman, author of SPANKING WATSON, etc.

This is an excellent text. I've read it thoroughly. The material , as presented, assumes a robust course in accounting at the college level. This text is for a student desiring a complete rendition in basic finance topics and techniques. The text is replete with many examples and challenging problems of various complexities. The presentation is easy to read. The book is directed to students perhaps majoring in economics or finance. It is not a purely descriptive rendition of finance. A

considerable amount of so called "numbers crunching" is involved in reviewing this text. As such, the book serves the analytic student optimally. The text is devoid of the most complicated analytics inherent in "quantitatively oriented texts". There is a good appendix on the use of financial calculators ,as well as, present value calculations and other useful knowledge supplemental to the study of finance. This book would be most useful to students planning their careers as financial analysts, corporate planners or private entrepreneurs.

This was the best. A very clear and concise book for the serious student being introduced to the subject of Finance. Other books on the subject I've seen are very abstruse or just plain hard to read aside from weighing a ton. I had another book twice as thick to complement this one and my class abandoned it in short order. This book is comparatively light and chalk full of useful ideas and examples laid out in an organized and methodical manner. The generous use of charts and tables was executed well. Probably as simple as finance can possibly be put while still retaining the rigor and teaching the processes necessary for making financial computations.

Topics included are on basic valuation of various securities and projects using discounted cash flows, capital budget management, liquidity management, etc. I'm still learning from it after school. There simply wasn't enough time to fully cover everything in the book that I would have wanted. Now I'm ready to tackle more advanced corporate finance books/materials.

This is an introductory book for someone who may be interested in becoming a financial analyst but is obviously geared to the educational market for use in schools. The academic slant limits its applicability somewhat. Although it may give a stock market player who wants to start understanding the systematic process involved in the valuation of securities on a cash flow basis some insight for example, discussion on valuation by multiples like P/Es is virtually absent.

Nonetheless a great book.

I use this book at the University of Wisconsin Stout. I think this book is excellent. I'm taking a copy with me to London. "A must" if your a Finance major.

I have tried to read the Gospels several times, and had always come away dissatisfied, feeling that I was missing the true meaning. This book (and part two) solved that problem for me. Barclay takes anywhere from one to several verses at a time and discusses them in the contexts of the time they were written, the prevailing religious thought, and their admittedly proseletizing purpose. He demonstrates how Matthew took ideas from the Hebrew Scriptures and showed that they predicted the coming of Christ. He also tells that many of these references were inappropriate, but because Matthew was intended for the Jews, this method was used. Beyond this, though, Barclay explains the meaning of the words and deeds of Christ, making opaque parables and homilies clear and compelling. The love of Christ and his ministry to save mankind come alive in this book. Barclay elucidates the message of Christ in a powerful, heart-gripping and understandable way. I am a Jew, and recommend this book to people of any faith if they wish to understand Matthew.

this book is really good...i especially enjoyed the depth of knowledge and insight. it tells you how customs and manners were relevent to that time period and why people did the things they did during that time. ive been looking for books of this nature for a long time and finally found some. it is a very good book and i will probably buy the entire series.

This is one of the two volumes Barclay wrote on the Gospel of Matthew - each covering roughly half of this book of the Bible. These are a part of his series on the New Testament, where Barclay clearly discusses each section of each book of this portion of the Bible. Each section of the book starts with William Barclay's personal translation of the text and then goes into a discussion of the text, the times, the culture, the people, and the beliefs surrounding the text. William Barclay talks about the Bible in the context of when it was written and how it applies today. It is not surprising that the writings of this scholar hold up now as they did 30 years ago. Funny how truth stays the same year after year - it keeps going, and going...

This being one of Shakespeare's less-performed works, I purchased the tape to read with the text, before seeing a production. It's also one of the few audiobooks I've purchased. Worth every penny--like listening to a radio play! Wonderful diction, stirring readings, not what I expected from a play that--let's face it--is confusing for those not versed in English history. Having gone through it once, I can now listen to it without the text and pretty much follow the action. Glad I purchased Parts II and III at the same time.

This being one of Shakespeare's less-performed works, I purchased the tape to read with the text, before seeing a production. It's also one of the few audiobooks I've purchased. Worth every penny--like listening to a radio play! Wonderful diction, stirring readings, not what I expected from a play that--let's face it--is confusing for those not versed in English history. Having gone through it once, I can now listen to it without the text and pretty much follow the action. Glad I purchased Parts II and III at the same time.

As three television series and numerous versions on stage have demonstrated, the Henry VI trilogy plays very well on stage, even when given without cuts. None of the action and certainly none of the characters are particularly complex; although a good deal of background information about Richard II and Henry IV is requisite to appreciating what is happening here. And when "Richard III" follows, this play is made so much clearer appearing as it does as the logical consequence of all the events that came before it. Therefore I am delighted to report (1) are now available as late entries in the remarkable Arkangel Shakespeare series put out by Penguin Putnam, and (2) they make for some terrific listening.

Using some military music and representative battle cries for the many combat scenes and the opening and closing of doors to let us know about entrances and exits, this set gives us a fast-paced account of Shakespeare's dramatic shaping of so many years of tumultuous English history.

Now this play has a large cast and it is very seldom clear just who is speaking at any given moment--a problem endemic to any play on tape with several characters--and it is recommended that one have a text handy during the first hearing. Or if you have seen the magnificent BBC productions of this trilogy, you might be able to know who is speaking from your memory of that series. Suffice it to say, most of the important characters can be recognized by their voices, although (as many critics have pointed out) all the men do tend to speak alike until the very idiosyncratic voice of Richard Gloucester appears late in Part II.

Since the demise of the old legendary series on Decca/London label back in the LP days, this is the only recording we have of these three plays; and we are very fortunate they are done so well.

The "Richard III" came out at the same time and I will record my comments about that set on the appropriate webpage.

Includes chapters on every major rock-forming mineral, with sections on structure, chemistry, optical and physical properties, distinguishing features, and paragenesis for almost every mineral. All this is presented in a clear and organized fashion.

Extremely useful reference book. As a grad student studying mineralogy, I couldn't do without it. A+

An great book. I have the 13th impression of this book published in 1982. We used this book in second year mineralogy and found it very useful not only in mineraology but throughout the remaining years of our geology program at University. The book is easy to use and has all the different groups, ortho- ring silicates, chain silicates, sheet silicates, framework silicates and non silicates and provides information pertaining to properties, crystal structure, chemistry and paragenesis.

This book is an absolute must for anyone working with minerals in any way. Beeing an introduction to rockforming minerals it is very conprehensive. It is very valuable not only as a textbook but also as a handbook in the lab. As the title says it covers the rockforming minerals so dont expect to find exotic minearls. You can though expect to find a relatively detailed introduction to the most important minerals. It far surpasses any student minaralogy to my knowledge.

This is one of the best books ever written on the performing arts. By focusing in on Barrymore's Shakespearean acting only, Morrison manages to show how a second-rate light comedian turned himself into a great artist by sheer hard work -- and then, horrifyingly, how an artist transformed himself into a clown through laziness and dissipation. Through the use of the actor's playbooks and impressive research, Morrison does the impossible and brings Barrymore's stage performances as Richard III and Hamlet so vividly alive you'll swear you're in the theater watching them (I was holding my breath at the end of "Hamlet"). Along the way there are vivid portraits of the idealistic, progressive theater in the 1920's and, a decade later, the ancestry of today's poisonous and envious celebrity culture. Once you read this book you'll never look at Barrymore the same way again.

Michael Morrison's book fills a much needed gap in the large Barrymore biographical canon: it tells the story of Barrymore the artist. Many of the other great biographies of the man and family (Margot Peter's THE HOUSE OF BARRYMORE, anything by James Kotsilibas-Davis, to name only two of many excellent others) understandably short-shrift the details found here, in favor of the fabulous "bon mots" and the large tragic arc of his life. Morrison, if it's possible to believe, makes that tragedy all the more heartbreaking by detailing the hard work that Barrymore put himself through to transform himself from a light comedian into the greatest tragic actor of his generation - and arguably the last great tragic actor of the American theatre.

The detailed recreations of Barrymore's acting in RICHARD III and HAMLET are facinating. They provide all of us who have come after some small picture of what it must have been like to actually see him on stage. It helps, I suppose, to be familiar with his film work, to have heard at least some of his Shakespearean recordings, in order to fully visualize Barrymore's "flashing, rapier" genius at work - but it's probably not necessary. A must for all Barrymore fans, actors, and theatre lovers, this book is a treasure. But beware, its story could break your heart.

Michael Morrison has provided us with a stirring portrait of one of America's greatest actors, John Barrymore. His book is a vivid account of Barrymore's innovative approach to Shakespearean acting and subsequent rise to fame. This book is required reading for Shakespearean scholars and Barrymore enthusiasts alike.

The texts of many Eighteenth Century books are full of interpolations by printers and may contain thousands of edits by the author, too. What Dr. Brack has done is to identify and evaluate EVERY variant to assemble a DEFINITIVE TEXT. He's spent a lifetime tracking down what Smollett actually wrote. If you want to know what Smollet wrote, and not his printer, read an edition that Dr. Brack has collated. These volumes are triumphs of scholarship as well as a service to readers.

I read this book for the first time over 20 years ago, and I must admit it shaped my life. When I have kids (twin boys preferably) I will see to it that Machiavelli's Prince, and Smollet's Fathom are mandatory reading.

As you are lead through the life and adventures of FCF, you realize just how villanous a handsone dandy can be. Whistling as he makes love to your daughter so as not to let on that he is picking the lock on your safe with a toothpick between his toes definately displays a sense of arrogance that one must admire!

This is definetely a challenge![.] I'm still learning how to play some of these songs. It has four or five songs from the first movie and seem to be written EXACTLY like the music in the soundtrack and movie. They are wonderful to play and I love the challenge.

This is the ONLY Star Wars Piano Arrangement that does justice to the original score. It's the only STAR WARS piano score I've found that is challenging. And that is where the books strength lies. This arrangement is not merely a collection of themes from the movie. It is an exact reproduction of cues from the original soundtrack, though not necessarily in order. Note that this book contains only has cues from STAR WARS EPISODE IV. But considering that there is no other arrangements coming close to its caliber, I recommend it wholeheartedly to the enthusiastic intermediate or advanced pianist.

The different rythyms and tempos of the songs in the books really make the playing exciting. I enjoy playing Star Wars songs becuase they are thrilling.

Southern, scarey, beautiful, mysterious, but never boring are the words which come to mind. But enough about my wife (cha boom teesh). This is a wonderful book! Dr. Williams skillfully draws you in and holds you tight, like a needy orangutan, to this wonderful story of relationships and dreams draped over a musical chair, called the Trybald Trio. The hard, raw emotions of this story remind me of Mississippi's Larry Brown and I was captured by the subtle beauty of Williams' clear voice describing the band's desire to play great music in the cesspool which is the music business. A great read.

"Lake Moon" is a story of shattered dreams and unrealized greatness. Superbly crafted with rich, moving passages this novel defines a period of time in the south when a generation of rock musicians came of age. Told with deep feeling and subtle humor, this book is a powerful work of fiction with memorable characters. Author John Williams has firmly established himself as a gifted storyteller following in the tradition of the great southern writers Pat Conroy and James Dickey.

Anyone who has played in a rock band--and taken the music seriously--will appreciate this saga of a group of musicians who should have captivated audiences throughout the Southern counterculture of the '70s. Just why the Trybald Trio failed is the subject of this eloquently written novel. Musicians and serious fans will recognize that the plight of the Trio was the plight of many real bands that transcended race and class differences and played stunning music--but who were no match for the egomaniacs, sharks and leeches infesting the entertainment business. Highly recommended.

Dr. John F. Crosby's "The Mystery of 'Fair Love,'" contained in this collection of essays, is one of the best introductions to Pope John Paul II's theological anthropology, "theology of the body," and thought on human sexuality available. Rarely does one find such insight and concise clarity in one place. Follow up this essay with the Pope's works collected in Pope John Paul II on the Genius of Women and/or Theology of the Body, both available through Amazon.

So much coverage of John Paul II presents him as a politician or a superstar. This book explains his role as a thinker. And it does a good job showing the theory behind the battles at the UN and the battle to restore orthodoxy---or just a little sanity---within the Catholic church.

John Paul II, the philosopher pope, is the most intriguing thinker of our time. But it's not easy to plow through the mass of encyclicals, adresseses, and books. This work provides an excellent study of the Pope's thought. Special kudos to John Crosby for showing the phenomenological side of the pope and to Joseph Koterski for unraveling the Thomist side.