E. A. Bowles book, MY GARDEN IN SUMMER, is part of a several part series of books he wrote describing his garden at Myddelton England during his tenure in the early part of the 20th Century.

I bought this book because I enjoyed books written by Beverly Nichols, an English writer who moved to the countryside after WWII and rebuilt the garden surrounding an old house. Nichols has the help of an excentric gardener, and all sorts of adventures with his cats and kooky maiden neighbors. I thought Mr. Bowles would prove to be another Brit gardener with a wry sense of humour but he is not -- at least in this book.

I am also a fan of Elizabeth Lawrence, a horticulturist with the N.C. State government who practiced her craft in the latter part of the 20th Century, beginning in the 1940s. Ms Lawrence referred to Mr. Bowles books in her own books. I love Ms. Lawrence writing because she not only provides the scientific particulars of each plant, she shares the gardening experiences relayed to her via her correspondance -- with Mr. Howdyshel in Ohio and gardeners in other parts of the country. Ms. Lawrence also provides the reader with many anectdotal bits about the plants, as well as the history of the plant. Ms. Lawrence is factual, sometimes amusing though not funny, and I find her books entertaining.

If MY GARDEN IN SUMMER is a fair sample of Mr. Bowles writing, his book will appeal to no one but the avid historical garden enthusiast with an in-depth knowledge of plants and curiostity about another gardener's experiences with various plants at different times in the last century. Or, someone who intends to visit Myddleton Garden in England, or has visited it might enjoy the book. Being able to see the real thing often helps, and the gardens are being restored--probably why the book was republished.

Mr. Bowles book contains a dozen or so black and white photos of mixed quality. For some reason, about half of them appear in the section he wrote on sedums and succulents. One photo in particular is very pretty, showing a long terrace with about 30-40 pots of various succulents. I'd like a blow-up of that photograph for it's aesthetic properties. You won't be able to identify many of the succulents in the pots, however.

An appendix in the back of the book provides the reader with the current names of the plants Mr. Bowles discusses. In spite of this update, I found the sections of greatest interest to me a bit deficient. On my next visit to England, I will visit Myddleton Garden, and then I'll reread the book -- or sections of it. That should help me better appreciate it.

This is a very good book for introduction into homiletics. I was a student of Fr Miller's at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, CA. It is a good text for first getting one's feet wet, and I continue to refer to it in my own preaching from time to time. His method is a rather basic one, but it still works well.

Dos based software/old formats etc. Unable to use. Without software the book is virtually useless. I would prefer to have my money back.

This is not a book but a piece of software with an accompanying manual. The software is probably the last piece of pure MS-DOS software still being actively marketed.

The user interface is so bad that it is difficult to see through to the underlying support calculation software. However, the software does provide you with an inexpensive alternative to sitting with your CPA or Attorney and paying $200/hr to try various support scenarios on DissoMaster.

But be prepared for an extremely frustrating software experience.

Last year I purchased the DOS version of this program--everyone's right, it was atrocious. However, I just bought the new Windows compatible version and it is outstanding. Very simple to use and I've had direct experience in comparing it with the Dissomaster program that's widely used by courts--and the results are consistently the same. Given that lawyers can charge $100 or more for a Dissomaster run, this program and book are a bargan.

They removed my last review, maybe this one will make it. Don't buy this book. Its written by a pack of convoluted thinking leftist bedwetters. if you want a factual book about the U.S. Constitution buy one published by the Cato Institute.

This book is a wonderful resource for someone interested in learning about the constition. This book walks you through the constitution line by line explaining and giving examples from actual court cases along the way. It's a little bit old, but I think it's definitly worth reading as a first look at the constitution.

This book is garbage. It is just thrown together for the publisher and author to make money. It is a very superficial review of cost accounting.

I was pleased with with this book. At the end of each chapter, a demonstration problem is provided with step by step instructions. Also available are template spreadsheet at the Southwestern website which are very helpful in understanding some end of chapter exercises.

this book was a disappointment to me. it was very un-specific, and did not really rate places in a way that makes it possible to decide where to go. this book might be useful to a first - time, short term visitor. I was hoping for a much more detailed work that would specify particular types of antiques (e.g. ceramics, furniture), and, even better, special periods or makers (e.g., moorcroft, doulton, arts& crafts). this book really didn't tell me any more than my eyewitness guide

The subject matter himself is not a worthy topic. While passably well written, the work does not seem to be one which should have been made. It seems that it was written by an academic to fulfill a writing requirement to earn tenure.

In fairness, I have not yet finished the book. Yet I am already disappointed that so little was included about the European ideological and theological heritage that went into the Articles and the Constitution. Also, very little was said about the motivations and concerns of the Anti-Federalists.
The layout is attractive and easy to read. At times, the information content per paragraph is low. Some of the incidents are interesting or good cocktail party fodder, but they seem to shy away from presenting thought provoking material without accompanying commentary. In other words, I feel they don't trust the reader to think for him/herself.
The authors manifest their views everywhere but do not admit that they are opinions or discuss how the presentation is crafted around those opinions. This feature of the book lends itself to a game that increases alertness while reading: "Spot the authors' opinions." Whether you find yourself agreeing or not, it is important to recognize the authors' goals and rationale.

This most biased reflection of Charles Eugene Bedaux demonstrates an underlying bias on the part of the Autoho. Unsubstantiated facts based upon Allen's prejudice are slanderous and if Bedaux were still alive, he would have set the record sttraight and possibly involved many prominent US citizens. Bedaux did much to styme the Naxi operarionf in France and this is totally ignored in this book.

This book charges that the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, gave Allied military secrets to Germany in a deliberate scheme to help the Nazis against his own country.

The British establishment, the author says, used Edward's love for Wallis Simpson as a pretext to force his abdication because of his pro-German views. Then, he says, that same establishment used Edward to spy on French military installations for Britain--but that Edward simultaneously passed the secrets along to the Germans through Charles Bedaux, a shadowy character with ties to both Edward and Adolf Hitler.

The book is built around a handwritten letter, in German, from Edward to Hitler, which the author says his father received years later from Hitler's architect, Albert Speer. The book surmises that Edward gave the letter to Bedaux, who hid it in his hat band, or elsewhere, and then personally delivered it to Hitler.

On the surface the letter is cryptic. Was Edward really trying to hurt Britain--or help Hitler put him back on the Throne? Was he being solicitous, or devious? If the circumstances surrounding the letter are indeed what the author claims, then this book has a real story to tell.

Unfortunately, the book's shortcomings as a serious history cast doubt on its conclusions. There is some original research, particularly with respect to the background of Bedaux himself. Most of the text, however, rests either on secondary sources or on no acknowledged source at all. The author does not cite the particular pages of the secondary sources, so it is virtually impossible for readers to evaluate the information for themselves. Worse yet, many highly accusatory and critical passages have no source references whatsoever, leaving frustrated readers to wonder whether the undocumented conversations and events actually happened. The overall tone suggests that the author has let his own animus toward Edward dictate the scholarship, rather than the other way around.

The author explains that many of the primary source documents have been destroyed, are not available for inspection, or are perhaps even being hidden by the British royal family itself. That, though, is not a license to make critical assumptions that result, essentially, in a charge of treason.

The letter appears to bear Edward's handwriting, as far as one can tell from the lithographic reproduction in the book. In an appendix the author recounts that a handwriting expert authenticated the letter. Sadly, however, he does not identify the expert, and the glaring absence of the expert's identity further undermines this book's claims.

Even if the letter is genuine, it does not prove the author's thesis. Edward was not anti-German, and he may well have thought that the Nazis were Europe's best defense against Soviet expansionism. He may also have been careless in his dealings with both Bedaux and Hitler. But that certainly does not mean that Edward would deliberately seek to harm the Empire that he served so long as Prince of Wales, and later as King.

The overreaching premise of this book makes the story of royal intrigue entertaining, but one should not uncritically accept all of the story.

Martin Allen's book „Hidden Agenda - How the Duke of Windsor betrayed the Allies" provides us with an interesting look behind the stage on which the beginning of the Second World War was taking shape. Martin Allen describes in considerable detail the interests of the various parties involved in this conflict - the actors, the observers, and the by-standers, and he adroitly shows how some of the players, at times, would switch from one category to the other.

The lynchpin of the book is a letter, supposedly written in late 1939 by the Duke. Its purpose was to introduce to Hitler the Duke's messenger, the Franco-American industrial consultant, Charles E. Bedaux who, in those early months and years of the war, was able to travel quite freely from one side of the „Sitzkrieg" front to the other.

A facsimile of the letter is shown in the book. Obviously, for a mere reader, it is impossible to say whether the letter is genuine or not. The (German!) text of the letter is, however, just ever so slightly off the track with respect to normal German style, grammar, and vocabulary that it may well have been written by a person, such as the Duke, whose command of the language was good, but not perfect. It would have taken an excellent forger to achieve such a convincing degree of (im)perfection.

The immediate military results of the Duke's overtures toward Hitler were twofold. They represent, in a way, each party's ante in the bargain: the Duke's information on the French defenses allowed the Germans to turn the „sitzkrieg" into a „blitzkrieg" in the summer of 1940, whereas the German contribution was to hold their panzers back when they reached the Channel, thus allowing the British Expeditionary Force to retreat from Dunkerque with acceptable losses.

At this point, the book argues more or less explicitly, it would have been possible for some sort of peace deal to be reached. However, the Duke's position at home had been undermined by internal machinations that had led to his resignation and he was unable to realize his ambition which, according to Allen, was to recover his throne through this admittedly risky alliance with Berlin.

The obvious argument that comes to mind at this point is that any peace with Hitler would have constituted an abandonment of Poland for whose integrity and protection the Allies had, after all, gone to war. We must realize, though, that at the end of September, 1939, when the war in Poland had come to its rapid end, the Germans had occupied only the western half of that country. The eastern half of Poland was, by then, under Soviet domination, because the Soviets had, on 17 September 1939 (when the victory of their German ally was evident) sent in the Red Army to take over the rest - and to hold on to it to the present day.

This overt act of aggression did not cause a stir in the Allied camp and voids the argument sketched out above. The value of Allen's book lies in its exposure of the duplicity of the policy of the Allies. Only five years later, the world witnessed and for the most part, welcomed the complete hand-over of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe to Stalin who, by that time, had become the West's most valuable ally in the fight for the ideals of freedom and democracy. It took History a mere fifty years and millions of dead to rectify that situation. One wonders if the price that might have had to be paid to Hitler would have been quite as high as that.

This book looks like it was done originally as a textbook or workbook for a welding course. I found the information to be fairly simplistic and out of date.