Robert Boettcher's Gifts of Deceit insightfully and thoroughly documents the activities and findings of the Frazer Committee.

This congressional subcommittee( through it's 1978 report) on International Organizations opened a window on a world in Washington which many would prefer to see closed forever.

The report of this committee informally called the Frazer Report exhaustively documents and details Sun Myung Moon's role in working to shape American foreign policy. It further names a whole host of characters including American politicians, military leaders, Korean diplomats, former Japanese prime ministers, not to mention President Dwight D. Eisenhower who wittingly or unwittingly wound up acting as agents or surrogates for Sun Myung Moon and his "Unification Church".

In addition to reading like a first rate who dunnit Boettcher's book gives the reader a behind the scenes look at official Washington which to this day has done nothing about the principal findings of the Frazer Committee: namely that the Unification Church has engaged in systematic violations of U.S law. Banking and currency laws, securities and exchange commission laws, Immigration and naturalization laws and charities fraud laws.

Boettcher's book is the first book which reveals the global geo-political ambitions of the Moon organization. It is a must for students of foreign relations, students of destructive cults, and for students of the U. S. Constitution particularly those who take an interest in the first and the thirteenth amendments.

I read the second edition of this book before moving to Honolulu three years ago, and still find it a very useful reference. Joe Bisignani gives you tons of interesting and useful information in an enjoyable writing style that captures the mood of the islands. Anyone who is the least interested in exploring Oahu beyond Waikiki Beach will find this book useful. Unlike the writers of some competing guidebooks, Bisignani is honest about labeling expensive tourist traps as such (it is telling that most of them have also shown up in the "Honolulu Weekly" annual readers' choice of "Best place to cruelly misdirect tourists"). Inbetween all the hard facts, Bisignani also manages to give the reader an accurate portrayal of the social climate of Oahu. Unlike most guidebooks, this one has an extensive and excellent history section, and there are also many references to fascinating Polynesian legends throughout the book. Warmly recommended!

If you liked the book you will love this audio presentation.

'The Moon of Gomrath' is the wild magical sequel to 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen', set in Alderley Edge in Cheshire of the present day but harking back to the days of Middlearth. Both these stories have a very Tolkienish way about them, it is an interesting exercise to compare and contrast the characters as they are introduced. It is a pity that Garner's books, faring less well than 'The Hobbit', dropped off the literary radar in the 1980's, but with the benefit of Potter power they are now back in style with new artwork on the cover.

Garner's special art is to take a basic swords-and-sorcery story and elevate it into a poetry-and-powers myth with gritty heroes and terrifying villains who hard to defeat and not always easy to spot. This story of Colin and Susan's second adventure is aimed at a slightly older audience than the Weirdstone, has Susan in the lead role, and has more depth and menace along with some sly humour. The Morrigan is back, not yet at the height of her powers, but ready for revenge. The elves are suffering and dying from the pollution caused by Man: they must retreat to cleaner, remoter places. The battles in magic and swordplay are more deadly and more personal and more realistic. The havoc and hard pace of war are felt in the prose, which is breathless and a little wild itself. The wizard Cadellin takes more of a back seat in this adventure but he does explain (in chapter four) why the coming of the 'Age of Reason' and industrialism was more of a coming of the age of Materialism and a retreat from Reason. Hence the great rift between our Man's world of material values, and the worlds of magic and the life of the spiritual values.

Now as every parent knows, children's books have the power of forming the child's mind. (True even in the age of film and video, as books are both more personal and make mind-expanding demands on the imagination. Films just fill up whatever space is in your head, they do not create it. Books are not just good for you, they are more fun.) So with magical adventures being very much back in style now is a good time to get the various authors into some sort of order. So, without going back to the ancient Greeks, where does Alan Garner fit in? We can easily go back a century or so: F. Anstey (Vice Versa), George MacDonald (Princess and Curdie stories), and E. Nesbit (House of Arden, etc), Tolkien (Hobbit, Farmer Giles of Ham), C.S. Lewis (Narnia, the land of youth), Ursula K. LeGuin (Earthsea), and Alan Garner. And, as Rowling's ghost Peeves puts it, 'Wee Potty Potter', brings us up to date.

So there are two main routes to magic. Anstey, MacDonald, Nesbit, Garner, and Rowling write a story that exercises magic in this world, and the two things collide with exciting degrees of chaos and depth. The results are serious or hilarious, or both. Garner manages to interface the two worlds with superior art. But a higher priced ticket will take you to a whole new world. Tolkien, Lewis, and LeGuin create whole worlds of their own and people it with new peoples - a fully magical world. The magic is integrated, truly part of the fabric of that world, not just added to make it fizz. One you are in, you belong there for a while. You return and your own world is now a little more magical. The whole range of literary forms is now possible, even super-possible as we no longer rely on supposed 'realism' to make the effects. They go beyond just making a magical talisman or two (some brilliantly done, others less so), and seeing 'what happens'. They make new countries and skies, new kingdoms and peoples, new languages and rules. Ultimately they are the suns and the others are the moons.

And what a ride, indeed! From the Baltic to Afghanistan and back, one feels like adding. Whereas Wilcocks' first trenchant appraisal of the Wiener Troll (Maelzel's Chess Player: Sigmund Freud and the Rhetoric of Deceit, 1994) had exposed the rhetorical deceits practised with such consummate skill by its founding father, the present volume takes us back to the early, dare one say infantile, years of what was to become the strange cult of psychoanalysis. In doing so, Wilcocks gives a penetrating account of the bizarre origins of Freud's ideas, his unbelievable mendacity and megalomania, his almost unique capacity for self-deception, and the truly astonishing level of his scientific and clinical incompetence. But there's more, much more, to delight and tantalise, to provoke and scandalise the innocent as well as the cognoscenti of recent Freud studies in Mousetraps and the Moon. If Freud richly deserves to be nailed as the "Lysenko of psychiatry and of literary studies", the contemptible dishonesty of his contemporary apologists and analytical fellow travellers are equally worthy of exposure. And this Wilcocks provides, in spades, and to devastating and often hilarious effect. His latest endeavour is a worthy addition to the growing body of literature that has finally begun to challenge the intellectual and moral pretensions, nay bankruptcy, of a man and a movement that have "wreaked havoc on at least two generations of .. psychiatric scholarship" and, perhaps more importantly, its clinical practice.

It's great to see Steinbeck's works coming out in this nice edition. This volume is up to LOA's usual excellent standards, and like the first two volumes in the Steinbeck series, continues covering both famous pieces like Cannery Row and East of Eden, as well as some of his less known works. In any case it's a real treat for any Steinbeck fan. Can't wait for the fourth volume!

My four-year-old adores this book, still. He had us read it to him four or five times per night when he was in diapers. Now, he still keeps it on his bookshelf. It is simply worded, sweet, and like Goodnight, Moon--it has a cadence that encourages relaxation and sleep. It should have been a classic.

We borrowed this book from our local library and my 3 yr old can't get enough of it. This is absolutely a perfect bedtime story for toddlers, and parents get a kick out of it too when our kids start to tell it from memory. Especially the part about the "big fat dinner". I highly recommend this for anyone with a toddler.

This book is very complete. Its has a good begining a very good body and a good ending.