Many years ago, I bought the first edition of this book. Since then, it has saved me from many a bad deal and has also helped me better indentify a few instruments that I already owned. There ARE books that are more detailed (such as Gruhn's identification guide), but this very succinct and reader-friendly guide enables the reader to help find and use serial numbers (and the way they're applied - inked, stamped, decal) and other indicators (such as paper labels inside hollow body guitars) to quickly figure out the manufacture year of the major brands of guitars. I confess that I haven't seen the latest edition, but my edition has an abundance of sample photos, lists and charts to help the reader. These days, with the price of vintage guitars at an almost absurd level, this book could save the reader from a very costly mistake. Of course, a book this short cannot give you EVERYTHING you would need to know in EVERY case (and I'd certainly be careful with very expensive instruments - conterfeits exist), but I consider this book to be an absolute must-have for any guitar collector's library and an outstanding value to boot. It's easily worth double the price.

This book is the first comprehensive source for comparative immunology in such a wide range of species. As such it will be an invaluable addition to the library of any researchers working outside of the usual primate-mouse paradigm. It will also prove useful to veterinary scientists working in vaccinology or other immunology related fields and as a graduate level reference text. Each chapter provides information on a given animal or group of animals and is edited by at least one expert on that particular animal or group of animals. The chapter sections, covering specific immunological areas, are likewise edited by at least one expert in the field. Chapter sections are kept essentially the same in all chapters to make for easier comparisons between species. Easy comparisons are also facilitated by the great amounts of information presented in tabular form. Extensive references direct the reader to important papers and authors in the various fields thereby allowing the reader to pursue more specific, in depth knowledge. One weakness to be perceived in this excellent book may be the need for more diagrammatic representations of the genes encoding antibodies, TCR and MHC thus making for quick, at-a-glance, genetic comparisons. Readers will hopefully suggest other improvements and expansions so that future editions will contain still more information, and perhaps more species, as knowledge increases. Due to the vast array of international expertise brought to bear in the preparation of this book it is a top quality production, able to cover even such a broad range of vertebrate species very well. All in all the importance and utility of this book can hardly be overstated. As its use and familiarity grows, the editors may expect many thanks from colleagues around the world for this timely work.

This is the only book by Andre Lunay that I have heard of, but it is pretty darn involving. It concerns an English school boy who decends into insanity as he searches, then discovers his real father. After being lied to for all of his life he decides to embark on a mission to find out about his real father against his family's wishes. His descent into insanity is actually kind of cute in it's childish innocence. The main character is on his own personal quest and he dosn't care what it takes to find it. It is an enjoyable Dark Comedy that deserves more attention.

This book is a rich resource on a wide range of issues associated with the nearly 500 years of growth and transformation of Havana. It is a seminal work that belongs on any Cubanologist's bookshelf, and an essential text for anyone reading to prepare for a trip to the island. It is also an important work for those with only a passing interest in the specifics of Havana's built environment, but who are interested in urban history, architectural forms, state socialism, or Cuba's post-Soviet transition.

The 5 stories in this volume are discussed below in order of original publication, rather than the order in which they appear in the book. Only one is a Witch World story, but due to the perversity of life in general, it so far appears *only* in this book.

"By a Hair" (1958) - Also appears in _Wizards' Worlds_. This story takes place in a tiny, nameless valley somewhere between Germany and Russia. During World War II, the old Count was shot and his wife was sent to a concentration camp - and Ivor and his men took to the hills to fight.

After the war, Ivor married a woman in the mold of la belle dame sans merci - beautiful, ambitious, and cold-hearted; she married him because in the immediate wake of World War II, he was a hero, with the highest status in the valley. The countess came home - her body so twisted and broken from the Nazis' tortures that few remembered that she was still a young woman. It seemed that life would go on...then the last, crushing blow fell. The Russians came, and this time, the little valley was left to fight alone, without the world's help. The Russians killed any authority figures they could catch that the Nazis hadn't killed already - except Ivor, who took what fighting men were left and headed into the hills again, and the Countess, who also faded into hiding. Among those killed was the priest - and in their despair, the valley folk began to seek help from other sources.

"Wizard's World" (1967) - After Earth's devastating atomic wars, mutations began cropping up - notably the Espers. Once respected, then warily tolerated for their wild talents, all Espers are now either trapped in labor camps, hunted fugitives, or - worst of all - traitors, serving as trackers to hunt down fugitives.

Craike, an Esper now hoping only for a quick death before he can be forced to betray his allies to the hunters only minutes behind him, climbs to the top of a rocky gorge in the desert, flings himself from the brink - and falls into a foaming river where no river could be! His desperation and Esper talent have somehow unlocked a gate between realities, into another world.

This is *not* a Witch World story; to the best of my knowledge, the world Craike finds himself in has not reappeared in any other Norton story to date. Magic does exist in the Wizard's World in which he finds himself, but magic dominated by men, and only those belonging to the order that rules the country - not that they're the *only* practitioners of magic, but only they have official sanction. Craike finds a brother and sister who have been condemned for the crime of having magic that doesn't fit the approved mold - and steps in to try to rescue them. Craike has gone from one Esper's war to another - but this time he has a chance to win.

The story doesn't wrap up with Craike's total victory, nothing so trite. We just have a man who has the makings of a warlord, carving out for himself a promising beginning.

"Toys of Tamisan" (1969) - See my review of Norton's book _Perilous Dreams_ for my review of this story and its sequel, "Ship of Mist", the latter of which appears *only* in _Perilous Dreams_ to date.

"Through the Needle's Eye" (1970) - Also appears in _Moon Mirror_. The narrator, looking back, on her childhood as a little girl crippled by polio, begins with the day she refused to go to a birthday party, since she couldn't join in the games. Exploring the back garden to kill time, she crosses over into the neighboring property - to find a beautiful quilt on a clothesline, a work of art. And then a voice behind her asks her opinion of it...

Thus she meets Anne Ruthevan - an artist in needlework whose life and body were both smashed by the carriage accident that killed her father when she was twenty. The now-elderly Miss Ruthevan takes the girl on as a student in the art of needlework. For hundreds of years, Ruthevan women have had the gift - witness the centuries-old tapestries in Miss Ruthevan's home. But what price have they had to pay for the greatest triumphs of their art?

"Ully the Piper" (1970) - Currently appears only in this collection. It's a variation on a Mexican fairy tale, "Domingo Siete", a version of which appeared in English translation in the Collier's Junior Classic series I had as a kid (called "Tonino and the Fairies", I think).

In the years after the Invader's War, the small village of Coombfrome, which was always isolated at the best of times, seems to have been completely forgotten. Even their overlord, whoever he may be now, fails to collect taxes. When a trader passes through, it's an event. One such trader leaves a pipe behind, to be broken in the hands of the arrogant braggart who dominates the youngsters of the village. But Ully, crippled and confined to a cart, has a talent for mending broken things, and teaches himself to play the now patched-up pipe.

Out of spite, the strutting bully who first broke the pipe one day sends Ully's cart out of control down a steep hill, to fetch up at the standing stones near the village. Where Ully finds that someone else might be interested in his music...

pensamiento sobre la integracion latinoamericana y sus consideraciones al respecto

Andre Sibomana was a phenomenal human being. The son of a wood sculpturer from Masango in the Gitarama prefecture, he rose to become one of the most prominent figures in Rwanda. As the priest of Muyunzwe from 1982-86, his parishiners called him "the wild animal," which translates more precisely from Kinyarwandan as "the wild animal which does not devour, does not crush the crops and does not do harm"(p. 16).

But over the next 8 years, as ethnic extremism escalated against a backdrop of a deteriorating economy in Rwanda, Sibomana would make many enemies. As the editor of Kinyamateka, a Catholic-sponsored paper that Alison Des Forge aptly notes in her forward as "the most important independent newspaper in Rwanda," and the founder of the influential human rights organization ADL, Sibomana relentlessly attacked the authoritarian, corrupted and appallingly abusive Habyarimana regime from 1988 right up until April 6, 1994. Many attempts were made on his life throughout this period, some of which he discusses.

Sibomana tells of how he miraculously survived the genocide. Although he is Hutu, he was marked for death because of his prominence as a voice of reason against the extreme propagandists and politicians who incited, in part, the atmosphere of profound fear, hate, and ethnic exclusion that made for genocide. This is one more indicator, among many more that Sibomana details, that the genocide was politically motivated, not a result of "ancient, tribal hatreds," but of "man's unrestrained taste for power in all forms and at any price"(p. 152).

Sibomana lived by the principle of human dignity. So when suspect perpetrators of the genocide were (and continue to be) rotting, literally, en masse in prisons established by the RPF since July, 1994, he spoke out, and then followed word with action by providing aid and improving the revolting living conditions. So too did he speak out of RPF reprisal killings. But his voice, once again, fell on oftentimes deft ears in the international community.

This is why this book is so important. Not only is it the first account of the genocide and its aftermath in English by a Rwandan, but it is one of the few accounts that exist that systematically illustrate and denounce major human rights abuses by the current regime, the RPF. Sibomana concludes, "It is as though they have learned nothing from what we have just lived through."

Sibomana makes a powerful, emotionally charged, but sharply reasoned indictment of the current government, one which receives so much support from powers such as the U.S., yet is, on the ground, Sibomana argues, as abusive, authoritarian, and dangerous as was the Habyarimana regime in the early 90s.

Carina Tertsakian has done a wonderful job translating this script. For those unfamiliar with Rwanda, this is a more informative (and just as opinionated) explanation of Rwanda - its history, the genocide, and its aftermath - as Philip Gourevitch's now famous book,*We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families.* For Rwandans and international scholars of Rwanda, this account is loaded with detail, insight, and passion. Though a succinct, powerful read, Sibomana is academic. For example, he writes, "Rwanda has a complex history. Were it not so bloody, it could be likened to a game of chess. Someone who hasn't followed the game from the outset and doesn't know the moves can't follow the subsequent stages." Then Sibomana moves the reader swiftly, though ad unguem, through Rwanda's complex history.

The title of this book may be deceiving to some. Sibomana's voice is anguished and angry, and he candidly describes events and behaviors that are the stuff of nightmares. In the end, my hope derived from Sibomana himself. Here was a man who made a difference and could have helped lift up Rwanda. But that hope is no more, and one must search for other sources, some which may be found in the last conversation of this book: "We Must Not Give Up Hope."

Andre Sibomana died of Lyell's Syndrome in Rwanda in 1998. He was refused a passport by the Rwandan government until 4 March, 1998, when he was on his deathbed (p.161).

This is more of a supernatural thriller than a si-fi type book...one of the few that I have read by Ms. Norton (&Miller). The story of Susan and Kuydall house is a nifty tale and well worth the read if you can find it. A novel addition to any Norton collection!

Often being referred to by my friends as some future world despot, I was intrigued by an article about this book. So I picked it up today at Borders and I thought it was hilarious. Pretty thought provocking strategies of global domination - to be taken lightly, of course. It's funny to see the book's strategies used to impress the media (quoting philosophers and the like) and then to see them imitated in real life by some clueless idiots. Anyway, haven't finished it yet, but I thought it was worth buying.

This is a rendering of one of the more obscure offshoots of the legends surrounding the mythical King, Charlemagne; not the Charlemagne of history, but a different, more romantic person. The book concerns the son of one of the Companions of Charlemagne, one Huon, who encounters magic, evil foes, chivalric episodes and the King of Fairies, Oberon himself. A great read for pre-teens, teens and a nostalgic plunge for older readers.