I couldn't put the book down in the beggining of the book. But at the end I wanted to burn the book. It is very repetitious. I give it a C-

This book keep me reading the diary was so real and made it seem like you kept the discovery of Jack the Ripper in your hands. The only negitive thing was the debating in the book about the materials of solving the case (i.e. the watch, and the discription of the murder scenes). But overall the book was informational and a really good novel.

Great Book. I'm reading it for the 2nd time after a years intermission. I'll be the most dissapointed person on the planet if this diary is proven to be a fake. I'm convinced it's real.
To me everything in this book makes sense...and I'm the type of person that things have to make sense or I just will not accept it. I'm still a little suspicious of Michael though...do you think he knew. My feelings are, burn all the other "Jack" books,this should remain the only one left in print.

As much as my friends and myself admire Jackson's classic works, I must agree that this is a pretty mediocre collection of short stories. Because many have not been seen for over 50 years however, they certainly belong in the library of every Shirley Jackson fan. "The Possibility of Evil" is stunning. Sometimes Shirley either tried too hard, had writer's block or simply experimented with the bizarre; whatever the reason, most of her works were ahead of her time and when she was good she was the BEST-there are, unfortunately too many rather dull and uninspired stories in this collection. Shirley was the female Stephen King of her day!

that's how i felt when i saw this book on my library shelf. it helped to quell a hunger that i have had for many years. thank you laurence and sarah for compiling these works. i would love to see the out of print works of shirley jackson back on bookstore's shelves.

There has been tons of controversy over this book about whether or not is should have been published. My personal opinion is that is should not have been published because these stories were private stories and were not published for a reason. However, now it has been published and there is nothing anyone can do about it but enjoy it as a learning experience. The reason I gave the book five stars was because it is a very accurate representation of Shirley Jackson. Writing was always theraputic for her -- she used it to express the other dimensions of her life and her self which no one could understand. Writing was a way of putting everything that went on in her mind down on paper. Therefore, reading these stories is like reading her diary -- she expressed her emotions through fiction, and the variety of characters and plots that can be seen in this collection are a representation of a certain period of her life through her eyes. If you are looking for the edited fiction that made Shirley Jackson famous, this is not the book for you. However, if you are interested in the inner workings of the author's mind, this collection of stories and essays is the closest one can get.

Catherine Tremayne's aristocratic lovliness was a flower no man had yet dared to pluck. But when Jason Savage first beheld the violet-eyed beauty, she was disguised as a Gypsy-a maiden long ago stolen from her father's Cornish estate. Only after he had carried her off to Paris on a dangerous mission for President Jefferson did Jason bare Catherine's secret. Yet Catherine's destiny drew her on, into a world of intrigue and danger, and she fled fron Jason to the city of New Orleans-through an odyssey of peril and sexual captivity-to ecstatic reunion with the fearless adventurer who at last would quench the fire in her burning Gypsy soul. I have read much better work fron Shirlee. But we must remember this book was wrote in the 70's when it was cool to read about the torn bodice and viciousness of the main male character. At least Catherine had spunk! But the pride thing from both of them! Give it a rest and just talk! They presumed too much through the whole book.

I just finished this book and I feel somewhat guilty here but I think Ms Busbee could have omitted many paragraphs; actually, chapters. There is alot of history and unnecessary information involved in this book. Be it accurate or not, I can't say for sure because I'm not a history buff BUT it looked awful close to me and really wasn't important to me given the fact that I was reading fiction. It seemed the romance between Katherine and Jason were seconday.

One certainly gets a very good education of the background of the characters; who they're related to, their connection to each other, and how they get to where they are sort of thing. I was annoyed and frequently read the first sentence and scanned the rest of the paragraph because it went on and on with a lot of detail that said it all in the first sentence. BUT, I couldn't just discard the book either. I wanted to know what happened which tells me, that the story line is good but there were too many second thoughts, politics, and questioning of of thoughts. There were 581 pages and I feel several could have been avoided.

I hate to ruin it for you but Jason rapes Katherine, repeatedtly, sort of. They are definitely attracted to one another but she fights him saying no but being glad it happens, (only to herself and with great difficulty) because he makes her feel as no other has (except for the 1st time). Given her only experience is wicked Clive's kiss and that doesn't make her react the way Jason's does so being the typical virgin she is 'confused'. She on the other hand says no and means yes (unconsicously). Jason is an alpha male; what he dictates, IS which doesn't sit well with Katherine. Katherine being strong (emotionally) fights him most of the way even though her body says yes. She cannot physically compete with him but she does give him a run for his money. I liked the battle between them but even that became tedious. I prefer when the hero and heroine have their disputes, 'make love', which is precisely what they do; they may not recognize it at first but this story leads me to believe it was simply lust that drove Jason to Katherine, at first which is ok for fiction.

To me, the challenge (meaning Davolas) and history was primary and the romance between Jason and Katherine was secondary. The others in the story were well plotted. Her mother and his father for example, Adam and Blood Drinker not to mention Jefferson so why do I give this 3 stars..........because of the detail. There was just too much. The sex scenes, and in the beginning that is all they appeared to be, were forceful even though Katherine unconsciously wanted and did eventually enjoy them but never openly admitted it to Jason and for a time to herself nor did he to either himself or to Katherine. Yes, there were some real love scenes in the book but it was mostly one sided and it took to near the end of the book to become acknowledged by both Katherine and Jason.

I've not read Ms Busbee before but I'm really not tempted to read another at this time. It's not entirely fair to base an opinion on one book so in the end I say the story line is good, detailed, but good. Katherine and Jason are believable but I prefer Stephanie Laurens, Kat Martin and yes even Andrea Kane. I can't argue with Dara Joy either.

All in all I will say if you are one who enjoys the history primarily and the romance secondary AND the constant animosity between Katherine and Jason then by all means, read it. If you are weary of a wordy, bitter book, do not attempt it. However, I'm not sorry I took the time to read it but knowing what I know now, I would not have pursued it.

I first read this book when I was...hmmn, about fourteen or so. I found it on my mother's bookshelf and began reading, and was instantly captivated and transported to the world of Jason and Catherine/Tamara. I remember being fascinated by the historical detail, enthralled and frightened by Blood Drinker and the Aztec side-story, and thrilled by the tumultuous relationship between the two "protagonists". Some people on this page have mentioned the aggression and violence of Jason towards Catherine; personally, I don't remember being particularly struck by this at fourteen. I am adamantly opposed to violence against women, and work personally for education about abuse in our society. BUT...and it may not be considered "cool" to say this...as any of you who have read any of Nancy Friday's books (My Secret Garden, Forbidden Flowers, Women On Top etc.) will know, many, many women fantasize about being "taken" violently by a man; this by no means implies that they really want it to happen. Perhaps it is "wrong" or a symptom of our somewhat twisted society, but it is nevertheless true. We must remember that we are reading FICTION here - escapist fiction, a fantasy. And in that respect, this novel succeeds in every area. It is well-balanced, interesting, exciting, even educational - but most of all, it is a GREAT escape. I can't wait to finally read it again - it's been nearly ten years, and I've finally found a copy!

The Light Beyond the Forest is a very "boring" story about knights that talk funny and have weird things happening to them. "Acts of God." Most of the time I didn't even think about the book while i was reading it.
The knights were from the Round Table in Camelot. If I rated this book I'd give it a 3 out of 10. ...If I were a knight I'd slice my hands, toung, and legs off before I read any other books in this series!

The Quest for the Holy Grail
The Light Beyond the Forest by Rosemary Sutcliff had an extremely interesting plot. The reader follows the quest for the holy grail in four different characters. Sutcliffe jumps back and forth between the quests of Sir Percival, Sir Bors, Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot.
The time of the setting is in the medevil age. It takes place in many locations throughout the story. There are a few suspenseful twists that will keep you waiting until the end. Throughout the quest many conflicts appear between the characters and the grail.
Finally, I would recommend this book for 13+. Although it is not very long it can be confusing and hard to understand at times. This book is great for adventurous readers because of its plot and conflicts

This story is about the many exciting adventures of a few of the main knights involved in the Grail Quest. It many follows Sir Lancelot, Bors, Percival, and Galahad. The stories tell of their journeys through unfamiliar lands, saving damsels in distress, and over all trying to find the Holy Grail the one thing all the knights' desire, but only one knight can recover it.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Although at times I was confused do to the ever-changing characters and story lines. Things I really liked about this book were the excitement in the adventures and the wonderful characters. I would most definitely recommend this book to all young adult readers who enjoy a great suspenseful tale.

Mark Twain's, The Prince and the Pauper is a classic look back into sixteenth-century English society. Tom Canty is a young boy who is born into poverty and is forced to beg in the streets of London by his father. Edward Tudor is the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne. Both of these boys were born on the same day but grew up in opposite ways of life. One day Tom is dreaming about being a prince and starts walking towards the royal palace. When he reaches the palace the guards try to stop him but Prince Edward sees Tom's condition and invites him to his quarters to hear what Tom has to say. While they sit there they begin to realize what strong resemblance there is between them and decide to switch clothes to fulfill Tom's dream of looking Princely. All of a sudden Edward storms out of the room to denounce the guards who did harm to Tom, only to be mistaken as the poor pauper and locked out of the royal palace. From here on out the two boys experience what life is like in the other's shoes. Mark Twain does an outstanding job of developing each character and showing how each must learn new ideas to deal with their latest way of life. Unfortunately I did find myself losing my concentration while reading this book. This easily could have been due to the fact that the way Twain wrote The Prince and the Pauper was actually on a very easy reading level, which would lead me to recommend this book to readers of middle school age who enjoy adventurous tales like The Boxcar Children or The Hardy Boys.

This is the story of a prince and a pauper who switch places because of their uncanny outer resemblance. They obviously go through many trials and ordeals - the pauper trying to learn the ways of royalty, and the prince having to witness and undergo the results of some of the ridiculous laws and practices of the period.

Like many of Mark Twain's books, this is another satire that makes fun of the values that society holds to be important. In this story, Mark Twain points out how people place so much importance on outer appearance. A prince and a pauper, who, despite their outer resemblance are very different people, switch places, without anyone noticing. There is more to a person than their looks, and this is one point stressed throughout the novel.

The one complaint I have about this book is that there wasn't enough written about Tom Canty, the pauper who became a prince. I found his situations much more interesting than those of the true prince, but this was only a minor point.

I would recommend this book for ages 12 and older. Younger people could read the story, but miss the underlying meanings in certain situations. I wouldn't call this book a "Must Read" but it is a good introduction to classic literature.

The Prince and the Pauper written by Mark Twain is an adventurous, exciting book. The book takes place in London around the 1500's. Two boys were born on the same day, Tom Canty and Edward Tudor. Tom Canty was born unto a poor life, and as a boy growing up, "Tom's reading and dreaming about princely life wrought such a strong effect upon him that he began to act the prince." And just his luck, did he happen to some across the Prince of Wales, after suffering the hard blow of the soldier knocking him into the crowd. The Prince of Wales is Edward Tudor, the other boy born on the same day but born into a rich and wealthy family. As a result from the encounter, the two boys decide to switch places, as the Prince of Wales says to Tom Canty, "Doff thy rags and don these splendors."
The book describes the boys' adventures throughout the experience of living each other's lives. As the Prince of Wales lives as the pauper, he is introduced to and learns about many different people such as the Canty family, Miles Hendon, a troop of Vagabonds, Hugo, the peasants, the hermit, and others. And as Tom Canty acts as the Prince of Wales, he experiences living the higher life of royalty, being treated with respect and given so many opportunities and choices.
Through having the plot be that the characters switch places, the book is more exciting because the reader could act in the character's place and experience the lifestyles and adventures involved with each person's life. Other than being able to understand better each person's lifestyle with the type of writing, using dialogue in Old English adds a stronger effect to bringing everything back in time to understand the setting. Although at times, the Old English could get confusing.
Overall, I thought that this book was interesting because it explains the lifestyles of different people in London around the 1500's in a way that is fun and easy to understand. Although at times, I did feel as if it carried on too much about things that were insignificant. Other than that, the book was good and I would recommend that it be read, if you are interested in adventure.
Other adventure books written by Mark Twain, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, were also interesting, but I enjoyed reading The Prince and the Pauper more because it contained more excitement for me.

There has been a spree for fitness these days-health food stores flooded with people wanting to eat healthy and lose pounds, gym packed 24/7, an incredible outburt of fitness book + programs like the "Power 90", "Body for Life", "8-Minute in the Morning to Fitness" and yada yada yada. Now we have "Eat More, Weigh Less". The title is sound and appealing-it's almost like too good to be true. But there's really nothing new here. It's the same-old same old trick that many have failed to keep up-change the diet, emphasize on high-fiber and abstain from fast food.

EAT MORE, WEIGH LESS shouldn't even be taken as a fitness program. It provides no plan for you to follow and track the progress. It is more like a vegetarian + vegan cookbook tailored for those who want to eat healthy and read food label at the grocery store. Roughly one-fourth of the book devotes to talking about fitness and losing weights, while the remaining three quarters are all recipes. And there is nothing secret or tricky about how to rid the belly: stick with high-fiber, low-fat diets, while completely abstain from high-fat, high-cholesterol items. The reason behind is simple: high-fiber and low fat food actually clean out our bodies. Oatmeals, 12-grain bread, vegetables, fruits are high in proteins but low in carbohydrates and fats. Oatmeals simmered in skim milk (NOT condensed milk) can help lower cholesterol. I disagree, though, to completely abstain from meat. Red meat and white meat provide unique proteins to our bodies that NO supllements can substitute. Not even soy milk or tofu. Protein, afterall, is a very general term. We need the specific proteins from red meat. Processed food like sugars, white rice should be minimized in portion. EAT MORE, WEIGH LESS lays out the general priciples in formulating a healthy eating habit. The recipes, though, are pretty difficult and time-consuming. I personally would not recommend trying the recipes unless you're like a mother staying at home all day venturing with various recipes and concoction. Stick with the eating habit and you will see result. Again, EAT MORE, WEIGH LESS is NOT a fitness program. It's meant to help people to change their diets via some underlying principles. For those who look for fitness program, search somewhere else.

A cool book about nutrition, health, and losing weight. This book is what actually motivated me to become a vegetarian four years ago and so far I've not had an ounce of meat since. Though I do eat fish, so some may not consider me a true vegetarian. I have recently picked this book up to review it and am finding it just as interesting as I remember. Ornish quotes scores of studies including his own which back up his philosophy about eating and health. In a nutshell, if you don't eat meat, and limit yourself to 10% of your calories as fat, exercise moderately, and "pay attention" you will avoid heart disease and other ailments, lose weight, and generally feel great. To be more specific, he concurs with Merkin in that you can eat as much grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables as you wants, but aslo warns that you should never stuff yourself. In fact, he concentrates somewhat on "paying attention" in the sense that if you concentrate more on what you eat as you eat it and not simply gulp a meal down while you watch TV, you are much more likely to hear the natural cue's your body puts out that tell you when you should stop eating. He also recommends getting rid of salt from your diet as this hides the flavor of food, and claims that after about two weeks your tastebuds will readjust to the lack of salt, sugar, and fat that is in the normal American diet, and which he claims hides the real flavor of foods, and after your tastebuds readjust, everything will taste much better then they ever did. Finally, when it comes to exercise, he has a very interesting viewpoint that moderate exercise such as walking is the best kind. The benefits he lists are that it is less stressful to your body, so you are less prone to injury, walking is a lot easier to do than other more vigorous exercises which may require special equipment, and finally, it aids much more in losing weight. This is because, according to Ornish, when the body detects that it is exerting a lot of energy in strenuous exercise, it slows the metabolism down in order to counteract this - it's trying to maintain the store of energy so that you don't starve. When you walk, your body does not get the same message, and so your metabolism stays the same and you burn calories without having to work as hard. Ornish does seem to get a little flakey towards the end of the first part of the book, where he talks about stress. If you are more scientifically minded, you can get beyond the psychobable/new-agey stuff and just retreave the main point that stress is bad. The second half of the book is a bunch of recipes by Ornish, but as stated by other reviewers here, these are somewhat ridiculous. Sure perhaps a wealthy diet-doctor or someone else with either a lot of money or time on their hands or both can make these recipes, but for the majority of us working stiffs, forget it! So I just ignored this part of the book. Don't even attempt it unless you have the qualities described above, and/or have a real love for cooking.

This is a wonderful book. Clear, informative, extremely helpful. It makes it clear that there are really only two ways to lose weight: eat fewer calories and burn more calories. You can eat fewer calories by eating less food, which works for any diet in the short run but not in the long run becaus (surprise!) you feel hungry and deprived. But by eating foods that are less dense in calories-- i.e., less fat-- you can eat the same amount of food and still eat a lot fewer calories, so you can maintain this way of eating.

A lot of people think that the only diet Dr. Ornish recommends is the same one he proved could reverse heart disease, but in this book he offers a spectrum of choices. In other words, to the degree you move in the low fat (and low sugar) direction, then you lose weight without being hungry. And your health gets better in other ways, too.

And most of the recipes are great, too.

If you like reading with a red correction pencil in hand, this is the book for you. Getting through even one chapter is a chore because the reader must navigate through a minefield of botched syntax, misspellings, garbled grammer, unfinished sentences and plain ol' bad writing. If there's an award for the worst writing and editing, this book's a shoe-in! I felt as though the writer rushed to get enough pages typed for a book and didn't bother to even do a cursory check of her work.

The content is not much better. Skip this book.

I thought the book was a wonderful read and it contained some great information on riding as well as the other ladies stories that were included in it. I thought the author included all a lady needs to know about riding when first starting out. I loved it and look forward to reading the next one out.

I really loved this book and the information given for ladies who ride has been so useful to me as a new rider such as how to ride in the rain, and how a woman can check out motorcycles before buying one. I'm looking forward to reading Miss Dicks's next book, The Devil's Playground published by Prometheus Books due out this fall. I've already read, They're Going TO Kill My Son and Death Row by this author.

I have already reviewed this book, and explained that there is only blame for the parents and important adults in the child's life for being shy. Many, many people have emailed me, requesting more information about what other explanations there could be, because their children are not shy due to their environment of happy loving families. So this is an update to my original review.

The book does not mention any treatable organic causes for apparent shyness in children, including but not limited to anxiety disorder, social phobia, and Asperger's Syndrome. None of these issues are discussed at all. This is a serious and inexcusable omission. All of them are treatable and controllable by medication and therapy. It seriously angers me that this book does nothing to address these concerns.

I thought this book provided a pretty simplistic view of shyness and its causes. It touched on medical theory and evidence, but didn't go into much detail. Some of the hypothetical examples given were a bit one-dimensional. The remedies were basic and not terribly creative. Still, there were a couple of good ideas, but it wasn't word reading through the whole book for them. Also, my child didn't really fit the archetypal profile that the authors outline, making the book less relevant or "custom fitted" for our particular child.

I found much of this book to be very helpful, with some great tips on helping the shy child. My child is on the very extreme end of being shy, with some SID to make matters worse. Even so, I thought this book had enough helpful items to make the purchase worthwhile. I'd also like to say something about another reviewer's comment that the book doesn't mention Asperger's Syndrome. This reviewer thought it was a serious ommission on the author's part not to mention AS. However, in the author's defense, I think it should be noted that this book was originally written in 1982, well before most people/professionals became aware that there even was such as thing as Aspgerger's Syndrome. That didn't happen until the 1990's, ten years after this book was written.

This book covers the basics and fundamentals of Web services security and industry specs to an extent and quite good.

This book promotes Quadrasis EASI security kit (like a UserGuide) which made me so annoying! It does not provide practical examples from industry leading security vendors like Netegity TransactionMinder, SunONE Identity server etc.

If you are looking for implementing XML Security using Netegrity TransactionMinder, Microsoft Passport, SunONE Identity server..then this book is a WRONG CHOICE. You may find this book more appropriate if you are a Quadrasis user.

The book does a great job explaining how to build non-trivial WS systems that are secure from end to end. Instead of limiting the material to descriptions of SOAP-related technologies and their security (this is what the other books I've read on WS security do), the authors first explain how to secure quickly a simple homogenous (M$-based) WS application, then point out the problems with such a simple-minded approach, and then devote the rest of the book to the question of securing complex heterogeneous WS applications by putting all necessary pieces together.

The first part also has a good introduction into the building blocks for WS security solutions, including not only SOAP and XML security, but also security of the underlying middleware technologies. Here, they could do a better job on going into more details about WS-Security spec and its friends. In the second part, they show how to use those building blocks together. Again, chapters on security of Java-based WS and the security interoperability lack a good structure and some times are just confusing.

From reading the book, it became clear to me that WS security is yet another instance of the old problem of enterprise security integration, although with a SOAP twist. Therefore, many methods from middleware security can be used for securing WS applications. I would recommend reading this book only to those who build complex heterogeneous WS applications.

Mastering Web Services Security provides a valuable enterprise perspective on building secure Web Services applications. Rather than focusing on a single technology like .NET or Java, the book provides useful real-world guidelines for building Web Service based systems that use many different products.

Some previous reviews of this book thought that EASI was exclusively a description of the product from the authors' company. I didn't see it that way -- in fact, I didn't see any specific details describing vendor products based on EASI. I viewed EASI more as an architectural technique that can be applied to many vendor products. Different Web Services vendors of Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) offer frameworks that look like EASI, which makes this book useful when evaluating those alternatives.

I've been interested in Jack the Ripper for as long as I can remember. ...

So, I happened upon this book and read it with great interest. I must say that even then, I was skeptical, and by no stretch of the imagination did I consider this book to be the resounding final solution that some still hold it up as. ...they're all just theories...and none of them truly hold up against close scrutiny. But I was still fascinated by this book the first time I read it, and there is a lot of decent information on the killings...which is why I've given it the two stars.

Then there's the actual diary. Well, the people who still advocate the notion that this diary is authentic have a rude awakening in store. It's not. The more I read on Jack the Ripper, and the more times I read the diary, the more obvious it became that the diary was NOT written by Jack the Ripper...or even James Maybrick...but by someone living in the 20th century who thought it would be "cool" to elaborately pull the wool over the eyes of Ripperologists worldwide. Well, it hasn't worked. And here are the reasons that the Maybrick diary is a fake.

First of all, there are some anachronisms in language in the diary itself, giving it away as a modern .... That's pretty cut and dried, but not nearly as damning as other factors.

There are many errors in "Maybrick's" descriptions of the crimes, and the crime scenes. It's interesting to note that all of this erroneous information can be found in old newspaper clippings from 1888, when the murders were occuring. But, as was often the case in Victorian times, many of the newspaper stories were quite wrong about the details of the crimes. The newspaper stories don't match the reports of the police officials and/or medical examiners involved...the people who actually gathered the information. So, we can conclude that much of the "factual" information in the Maybrick diary seems to rely on old news clippings, rather than the firsthand experience of the murderer. Surely, if Maybrick WAS Jack the Ripper, he'd know exactly what organs were missing from whom, and where key body parts were located if they were removed and left behind. He'd also know that Jack didn't take the key to Mary Kelly's flat with him when he fled the scene, etc. Unfortunately, the person who forged this diary DIDN'T know some of those facts.

Also, it's interesting to note that there are many parallels between this diary and the "Dear Boss" letter (which gave Jack the Ripper his name). If you read the diary with the chronology of the Ripper's murders and letters in mind, you'll see that "Maybrick" uses the very specific phrase "funny little games" (which was prominent in the Dear Boss letter) twice BEFORE the Dear Boss letter was ever written or sent. This would mean that, were the diary genuine, Maybrick would have to be the author of the Dear Boss letter, as well. But the Dear Boss letter is commonly accepted among Ripperologists as a fraud, written by someone other than the killer (much like this diary). One high-ranking police official who worked the case even had a pretty good idea who wrote the letter...and that person was a young, aspiring journalist. Couple this with the obvious fact that the handwriting in the diary in NO WAY resembles the handwriting in the Dear Boss letter, and we've found yet another broken link in the chain of this hoax.

I could go on and on, listing reasons that I know this diary to be a fraud...but that would be self-indulgent, especially since the most damning piece of evidence against the authenticity of this diary is the most simple one of all.

Michael Barrett brought this diary to Shirley Harrison, claiming that it had been given to him by a friend. The friend had said "No questions asked," and given no reason on earth as to WHY he would give this diary to Barrett. Surely, if his friend had ever been in possession of such a book, he would have gone public himself, rather than GIVING AWAY what could have been the most vital (and valuable) piece of serial killer memorabilia/evidence ever uncovered. Conveniently, Barrett's friend was dead by the time Barrett decided to bring the diary to the attention of anyone...therefore, he could neither confirm nor deny anything Barrett said...and so, Barrett could say whatever he wanted. And what Barrett eventually said...after all of the debate and controversy, after Shirley Harrison had written this book, after countless researchers spent countless hours analyzing this diary of his...was that he himself had written the diary, and that his wife had handwritten it in the old scrapbook, using his typed notes as a guide. End of story.

So, due to all of the evidence against the diary's authenticity, including the admission of the actual author that he had masterminded the entire hoax, the James Maybrick Diary controversy can be put entirely to rest. Therefore, this book is interesting only as a curio, and as a source of some factual information on the Ripper murders (but none that can't be found in other, better Ripper books). Give it a read, but don't buy into it. The debate is over. And Jack the Ripper remains, as he always shall, unidentified.

The Diary of Jack the Ripper is an extremely informative, readable book that kept me wanting to know more. I have read much about Jack the Ripper but this is the first book that truely explains many of the questions I've had. The initials "FM" on the wall at Mary Kelly's murder scene absolutely fit with the idea that James Maybrick was taking out his anger over his wife Florie's infidelity. The chapter on Florie's trial was informative without getting too detailed. However, one question I do have is about the authenticity of the gold watch. The book states that the victims initials were engraved on the inside of the watch along with the words "I am Jack". If this were truely the Ripper's watch, wouldn't the two Liverpool victims also be listed? Why only the Whitechapel victims? If you're a history buff, or have even a mild fascination with the mystery behind Jack the Ripper, you'll enjoy this book

I found this book to be a fascinating and interesting read. However, as to the diaries authenticity, it can be anyones guess. There are certain facts brought up in the book to authenticate the diary; but again, everyone loves a conspiracy. I won't go as far to say I believe that we now know the true identity of "Jack the Ripper", however; I will say that it is most entertaining....and does give one insight as to how a delusioned mind works. The reading can be spellbounding at times. The fact remains, however, that the true identity of "the ripper" himself is yet to remain a mystery. But...read the book and decide for yourself.