Dalrymple is fast becoming a superstar in travel writing. Read City of Djinns and you will understand why. His style is authorative, yet not pompous. His anecdotes are funny without being offensive to local sensitivities. Everything he writes will bring back images and feelings amongst those who have travelled around the old decaying Mughal city. What a beautiful place it must have been in its heyday some 300 years ago.

He doesn't come at you from any pre-disposed angle. He just tells you what happened during the Moghul, British and then the India days from the view point of every day people. And unlike many a British writer, he doesn't shy away from taking the arrogant colonialists to task for their blatant mistreatment of one of history's richest cultures. The decline of the Moghul empire comes across as equally pathetic. The racial hatred that has followed partition is also laid bare in the most frightening detail - a sea of Muslims and Sikhs sent to inhabit each other's territory with no chance of ever going home.

This is travel writing that is frustratingly good - and often very, very funny to those who grew up in either India or the UK. If only I could tell stories as good as this. Five Stars.

William Dalrymple has a great writing style and a deep apetite for understanding the historical and cultural context. He neither takes the clinical distant approach to his subjects neither does he use a patronizing attitude to India. If you have been to Delhi, the book will be a great reading; if are planning to go there, it should be required reading. You will enjoy your trip so much more. Even if you don't go to Delhi, it is just a wonderful reading. Olivia has done a great job in her illustrations.

"City of Djinns" is by far the best travel book I've ever read. It transcends the genre. It was given me by an historically minded Delhi-wallah, and he couldn't have offered a better volume. Mr. Dalrymple not only spent a year in Delhi, he spent centuries in the history of the 7 Delhis that have been built and lost. This is not a "go here, see this" sort of travel book. It is a "discover the wonder" book. Modern Delhi is a mess of a city, but Mr. Dalrymple takes us deeply beyond the mess into the wonder that exists and the magic that was. The incredible political and family history of Shah Jehan the founder of Delhi (Shahjehanabad)is the "Godfather" story of family members who would stop at nothing to win the empire. There is a severed head in this story that makes the horse's head in "The Godfather" look like child's play. This small portion of "City of Djinns" is worth the price of admission. I've spent a few months in Delhi, and this book would have made a better introduction than any of the usual guidebooks, as it is, it will make my return to the "City of Djinns" all the richer.

This book does a very good job of telling the story of a very minor piece of scientific research, the discovery of yet another species of large dinosaur (of which there are many) and the geological context in which it may have lived. Thus, as science, it is small potatoes. It does, however, cast the tale in the midst of a good review of elementary geology and paleontology, and consequently, should be accessible even to those who the read the book starting in complete ignorance of those fields. It fails to credit the Alvarezes (a physicist and a geologist) by name for finding out what happened to the dinosaurs, but that may only be the paleonotologist's resentment at having their best puzzle stolen from them by a physicist who didn't dug up so much as a single fossilized bone.

Overall, this is a book for fifteen year olds, but it is a good one.

"The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt" is the fascinating account of the rediscovery of the work of a German paleontologist in Egypt. Just prior to First World War, Ernst Stromer, a Bavarian aristocrat, made a remarkable discovery in a particularly inhospitable region of Egypt: the fossil remains of three different huge carnivorous dinosaurs. Painstakingly reassembled in Munich, they were destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in 1944. In 2000, a group of young American scientists returned to the area where Stromer had worked, unvisited by paleontologists in the intervening nine decades, and there discovered bones of what is believed to be the second-largest dinosaur ever, an 80 ton plant-eating behemoth.

The book juxtaposes these two stories in an entertaining and informative way. Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach of Nuremberg arrived in Egypt and headed off to his dig with four boxes of water, a handful of camels, a Bohemian assistant who was not feeling very well but knew about collecting bones, an Egyptian in charge of the camels and their drivers and a cook. Stromer was looking for evidence of early mammals but instead stumbled onto an unknown and important dinosaur graveyard. He was correct and precise and meticulous and quite brilliant. With his little band he made amazing discoveries but the coming war overshadowed everything. The Bohemian assistant died and the cases of fossils, damaged by inept handling, did not reach the now-impoverished Stromer until 1922. For the next twelve years he wrote up wonderful monographs on his Egyptian dinosaurs. One of them, Spinosaurus, looked like a giant T-Rex with a sail on its back. But only the monographs survived the bombing raid. Stromer was a respected man of science but did not suffer fools. It appears that his opposition to the Nazi regime came with a heavy price as two of his three sons died in the war, and the third son was a Russian POW for six years. He himself was twice threatened with deportation to a concentration camp for urging the removal of the natural history collection in Munich to a safer location. After his death in 1952, he and the wonderful dinosaurs seem to have been forgotten.

The time, but not the scene, switches and we enjoy reading about the antics of a group of enthusiastic young Americans, paleontologists and geologists, who decided to mount an expedition to the same Bahariya Depression where Stromer went. But this is a an expedition in a different century, and the group travelled with Land Rovers and GPS equipment and a film crew and actually stayed in a rustic hotel near the dig rather than in a ready-to-blow-away tent that served for Stromer. But besides their somewhat better equipment-it still seems to come down to picks and shovels and hard physical labour-the group brought an interdisciplinary approach and the advantages of nine decades of additional science and understanding. Part of the interest in the newer story is the importance that the group places in trying to understand what kind of environment the dinosaurs of the time faced.

The book conveys the excitement of an expedition very well. First there is the hassle of fund-raising and then the irritation of all the paperwork and the physical discomforts and the fruitless searching. But then there are breakthroughs, sometimes lucky, and then there is the ultimate detective work of adding up all the little shards and scraps and a 5 foot long humerus and some rock profiles and coming up with an answer to what this all means.

One of the great riddles posed by Stromer's finds was how three large types of carnivores could co-exist. This discovery of the huge herbivore answered this question nicely. But the book also makes the important point that very little is really known about dinosaurs since the fossil record is so incomplete. I was astonished to learn that fewer than 500 species of dinosaur have been definitively identified, amazingly few for the millions of years they existed on earth. As a comparison, there are about 330 known species of in the parrot family alone!

The authors do not mention that fact that the number of field paleontologists is minute and that the startling discoveries of the last decades have been the result of dedicated work by only a handful of people around the world. "The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt" tells an exciting story while recognizing the accomplishments of the past and would be a fine addition to the library of any student considering a career in this field.

To digress, this is not a book for specialists but that is not to condemn it in any way. "Popular science" is a genre that is often sniffed at but there is a huge demand to be filled. At a time when 18 percent of Americans 18-24 years of age cannot even identify where the United States is on a map, anything that arouses intellectual curiosity should be welcomed. That this book is simply-written and provides a summary of the history of paleontolgy is a good thing; that it was filmed and turned into a television documentary even better.

It is to the credit of the team of Americans that they have recognized the achievements of their predecessor in the desert in a particularly apt way. The prepared bones of the giant herbivore will return to Egypt, where they will be displayed with the creature's newly-assigned name: Paralititan stromeri.

This book is absolutely great reading. What it makes the book very interesting is the dual story. There is always a very good alternation of passages which describe Ernst Stromers expedition in 1912-14 to the Baharia Oasis (Egypt) on the one hand and the recent expedition of Josh Smith on the other hand.
Apart from this it is told a piece of paleontology which has been nearly "forgotten" although Baharia has been the origin of very unique predatory dinosaur species. In the years of 1912-14 Stromer excavated bones of three big theropods: Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and Bahariyasaurus. As a continuation of this story which has been sleeping for so many years we get to know how Josh Smiths team has solved the riddle Stromer left: the discovery of a huge plant-eating new dinosaur species: Paralititan. For everybody who is interested in an entertaining story on straight field paleontology I can recommend this book.

The book additionally contains 2 very fine passages with b/w photos. The first one shows photos and the well known monographs from Stromer while the second one shows impressions from Josh Smiths expedition. The second passage also contains two very fine life restorations and skeletal reconstructions of Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus as well as of the new discovered Paralititan.

For people wishing to know more about the Titanic aftermath, this is your book. This not fictions or guesses, this is the actual Official transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigations.
Excellent insight to the first hand personal accounts by the people themselves gives you a clearer understanding of the domino effect that caused the disaster.

Excellent reference work.

This book is imposible to put down! The real stories by the survivors themselves. As I read other books on the Titanic I often find myself wondering back to this book for references. I am planning to read the book again in case I missed anything the first time. I am not much for reading but I was still trying to find time to read it even if it was for a minute. The editors introduction to each interview is very informative and helpful! I wish they had had video cameras in 1912 just so I could witness the true thing but this book is definetly good enough. At times it is a very emotional, and at other times it is exciting when Senator Smith barks down an interviewee. This is where the legendary stories originated from. I would have given it 6 stars but... A must read for any Titanic buff!!!

I've slowly gathered more and more information about the Titanic disaster and this book gives voices to those old photos we've all seen. It truly is an unfolding of human drama and you can feel the frustration and tension in the questions and answers. I found myself reading the answers in a British accent! Not only do these transcripts add a personal dimension to the characters, but they also give first-hand accounts and facts, facts, facts. I love that!

"On A Street Called Easy, in a Cottage called Joye" is an easy and entertaining read, with short chapters perfect for the ride on the subway, or a break between tasks. A close parallel to "A Year In Provence", which is referenced by the authors, the story is essentially a humorous take on the gentry's lament "you can't get good help these days", but the biggest difference is that while "A Year..." is heavily slanted towards food, "A Street..." is almost entirely about the travails of renovating a wreck. It is after all, set in the deep (if it ain't fried, it ain't cooked)south, this is NOT Provence.
The "true" story follows its two, pullitzer prize winning authors as they leave their dark, viewless, Manhattan condo and set out for Aiken, S.C., where they've bought(for quite a bit less than the original million+ asking price) a sixty room mansion built in 1897 by WC Whitney, as the gilded age began to flicker to a close. Through neglect, the house is an absolute mess. The crew hired to bring it back to its glory is pretty much a mess as well. From the holdover-joint-toking hippie that makes off with the only, working-order copper piping to sell for scrap, to the tile man who wants to be paid for time he'd requested to hang out (doing nothing)while the tile arrived, to the maid who spends all day dusting 3 rooms, only to be discovered sleeping whenever the bosses are away. You can't leave this crew a for a second, as they discover towards the end, in a scene that will leave wine lovers heart broken. The problem is, as with "A year in Provence", the owners seem to have a bottomless pocketbook, and always seem to have a check to write to cover whatever goes wrong. And EVERYTHING goes wrong. This eventually takes away from the believability, especially when combined with the patience of Job that the two men seem to display, endlessly, towards what are essentially ne'er do wells and lowlifes posing as contractors. Ah, well. You do learn a bit about the Whitneys, the house in its better days, Aiken in its better days, and the more recent days. All in all a worthwhile read.

Can you begin to imagine two authors of brutal true crime stories, undertaking a project such as remodeling an old 60 room mansion? And can you believe their moving from their home in Manhatten to Aiken, SC? They write of their trials and tribulations, in such a manner, you wipe tears of joy and tears of frustration and sorrow for them. And all the time the reconstruction and renovations are taking place, they are constantly meeting friends and neighbors; while they are trying to hire someone for this project or that project. You celebrate with them over each accomplishment. By the time they finish the renovations, you can 'hear' the music filtering through the wing of the home where all of the parties will be held. Such excitement in the air. I am fortunate enough to live close to this location and took a trip over and found Joye Cottage! Absolutely breathtaking.... wish I could tour the inside.

I was given the BOOK version of this several years ago by a dear friend and honestly, I have read and re-read this book several times. The first time that I got it, I actually read it out loud to my husband while we were working on our own version of "Joy Cottage." We both roared with laughter!

Having moved to the South from the West Coast, I understood totally what Mr. White-Smith encountered! From Irish Travelers to the local restaurant that produces vegetables that have had every last trace of nutritional content boiled out of them, collard greens, fat back and fat light (it is vital that you know the difference: one is used to light fires and one is put in with your collards!),pepper sauce, sweet tea (cavities be damned!) to Moon Pies, Krispy Kremes, speech from people that you swear aren't speaking English, painters that can't paint, roofers that drink way too much, Nandina, Magnolias and Smilack at Christmas (I hope that I spelling the last one correctly!) and on and on and on. If you live in the South (especially if you are a transplant) and most especially if you live in or have redone an old house, this is the book for you!

As I said, I have re-read this book several times and I still find myself laughing hysterically. It is a great book that I am terribly sorry is out of print. Until it comes back into its second printing, the audio version will suffice. I wish they would do a "Part II" version...

A MUST read!

My introduction to the work of S.J. Rozan took the form of a short story. After reading one or two of her novels, I was telling friends on the internet that this writer was a major talent, someone I believed would be a strong voice in mystery.

With the publication of STONE QUARRY, the sixth book in Rozan's Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series, St. Martins Press has proved me right - but then, I knew that about the time that CONCOURSE, won the Shamus Award back in 1995. Rozan has not only developed a continually fascinating series, with fully developed characters, well-described settings (mostly in and around New York City), but she has successfully created a series with two distinct voices. In books one, three and five, Lydia Chin takes the narrative. She is a young, optimistic Chinese-American private eye who tries to balance the needs of her family and her own need to declare her independence and intelligence. The older, far more cynical private eye Bill Smith takes the lead in the other books. STONE QUARRY is, technically a "Bill Smith" book, while Lydia still participates. While Smith seems to fit the mold of he standard white guy p.i., he is anything but typical and is as interesting as his more "exotic" partner.

In this dark mystery, Bill is in upstate New York where he's had a house for years - a place he retreats to. He's in town primarily to assist Eve Colgate, a somewhat reclusive resident who wants him to check out a theft, without reporting that theft to the police. He is as well known as anyone in the area, but still seen as an outsider; even when he helps someone, he's somewhat resented. There is corruption, there's the arrogance of wealth and small-town attitudes for Bill to deal with. He calls Lydia, who is clearly out of her element in this rural setting, but still insistent on helping her friend and some-time partner.

STONE QUARRY continues an excellent series. It tells you more about Smith and Chin, two of the most intelligently drawn private eyes in modern day. Rozan, who won the Anthony for best novel for A COLDER PLACE, writes as effectively about this dark place as she does the bright lights of Chinatown and the upper west side and Brooklyn. The conflicts between Lydia's fairly upbeat attitudes and Bill's world-weariness only serve to highlight the way the two characters care for each other and keep each other balanced, keep each other from going off the deep end in either direction. This is truly one of the best mystery series available today - never a disappointment, cleanly, sharply written with warmth and wit and compassion, but the author never forgets to tell the story.

S.J. Rozan gets better with every book. I can't think of many writers with a more vivid sense of place: whether it's the kitchen of a dim sum palace in Chinatown, or a roadhouse in upstate New York, the settings of Rozan's novels, like her protagonists, are engaging and original. Bill Smith and Lydia Chin are rarities in the mystery genre: heroes with evolving inner lives, moral conflicts, and intelligent and humorous voices. Stone Quarry is Rozan at her best: it is wonderfully written and impossible to put down.

Stone Quarry is one of S.J. Rozan's best books yet. The feel for the landscape, both natural and social, is particularly strong. The isolated rural county where the novel takes place really comes to life. The story grips you by the neck and propels you forward, and keeps you guessing until the unexpected but convincing end. In its twists and turns, the plot put me in mind of The Big Sleep. The narrator, Bill Smith, is a complicated, private person, and we learn a little more in this book about what makes him tick. Some interesting changes in the relationship between Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin-- Rozan handles this with a skillful, subtle touch. Another strong character is Jimmy Antonelli, a working-class kid in deep trouble who Bill has helped out before. Jimmy reminds me of some guys I've known-- a bundle of bravado and contradictions, caught between wanting to do the right thing, and internal and external pressures that push him in the wrong direction. Rozan herself goes in exactly the right direction with this novel, a story that slowly builds to a fast and furious conclusion.

This book has useful (though not terribly complete) introductions to each of the plays, focusing mainly on comparing various Folio and Quarto editions of the plays. It also contains some nice pictures, though I wish the Latin in them were translated or shown at a legible size. It has very nice appendicies nothing the first appearances of all the characters in the plays, and a timeline showing what historical events were occuring in relation to works written by Shakespeare and events in his life, as well as to plays by other playwrights and other literature produced at that time. The pages are relatively thin and the print small. However (this referes to the '74 edition, maybe they have changed it since then) the plays are a royal pain to read. The pages are about a foot high and the notes are at the bottom. There is no marking to indicate whether a line has a note, so the reader must read a line or two, glance down at the notes, read another few lines, look at the notes again, and so on. Were it not for this major annoyance, this would be a very good (and very complete) edition of Shakespeare's works.

This one-volume edition of Shakespeare's works is the most complete I found on the market: it includes "The Two Noble Kinsmen", Shakespeare's addition to "Sir Thomas More" (with photographical reproduction of the pages believed to be in his handwrite), the currently hot debated poem "A Funeral Elegy by W. S." and, above all, "The Reign of King Edward III", a new play recently accepted in the canon by many authoritative editors (Arden, Cambridge, Oxford). The text of each work is carefully edited and accompanied by helpful glossarial notes, a textual discussion with short bibliography, and an impressive collation which allows the reader to find variant readings and emendations. An exhaustive critical introduction precedes each play and poem, dealing with authorship, date, sources, textual differences between quarto and folio texts, and of course the principal thematic issues. What makes this a superb edition - and indeed a real "companion" to Shakespeare studies! - is the great amount of subsidiary material, including a general introduction - focusing on Shakespeare's life, art, language, style, and on the Elizabethan historical and theatrical background - and a series of useful essays on various themes: critical approaches to the plays and poems, philological issues, history of the plays on the stage, television and cinema. There are also many interesting documents, synoptic tables, glossaries, indexes, illustrated tables (both coloured and b&w) , the reproduction of the introductory pages of the First Folio of 1623, and a rich bibliography. I personally consider this book a must have for every teacher, scholar, or simply amateur of the greatest of all poets. Buy it!

While I sympathize somewhat with the review below -- the introductions do quibble a bit over the differences between Folio and Quarto versions, the exact source material etc. -- I found this to be an excellent version of the complete works. The essay before each play is very helpful toward understanding the literary context of the play--they _do_ talk about the characters and the action of the play, in a way that nicely complements the text. The illustrations (some black and white, some color) are also interesting and helpful. The book contains both a general introduction, which is accessible, if slightly daunting, to a reader who might not be intimately familiar with all of the plays, serving to excite interest at least. It also contains an essay on 20th century Shakespeare criticism, which introduces many of the newer movements in Shakespeare criticism that are not included in the general introduction (which focuses more on the Elizabethan historical period, and more immediate reactions to the plays). The footnotes, while they are not indicated on the line itself, are located on the same page. In looking at several other editions, I found that footnotes were sometimes actually endnotes--i.e. located in one section at the end of the play, which would be very disruptive to reading. Happily, this is not the case in this edition.

The book, as the title claims, includes all of Shakespeare's plays, Sonnets, and poems. The appendices include many other interesting tidbits that help shine some light on old Billy's life, including his will, in which he enigmatically bequeathed a "second-best bed" to his wife. Other documents are included, often with explanations to help the reader to understand (as the documents are printed verbatim, the Elizabethan spelling and punctuation is a slight impediment).

Overall, I found this to be the best of the paperback and hardcover editions I examined.

This book seems to be geared towards classic ASP developer who wants to learn about ASP.NET. There are chapters explaining the difference between ASP.NET and classic ASP and migrating Web applications from classic ASP to ASP.NET. Some code examples use HTML with embedded VB, some use HTML with code-behind files coded in C#, and some use HTML with embedded C# code. The book discusses .NET architecture/framework in some detail and explains complicated topics such as: MSIL, CLR, and JIT quite well. The book covers a lot of territory, including ADO.NET, working with XML data, HTML and Server Controls, Validation Controls, Debugging, User Controls, and Web Services. There are several appendixes which cover ASP.NET syntax, ADO.NET object model, VB.NET language reference, and C# language reference.

This book is a concise and incomplete reference of ASP.NET, but that appears to have been author's intent. It's well written, well organized and easy to understand. I think the intended audience, which is a beginner-to-intermediate Web developer, will find it useful. The author makes an assumption that the reader is familiar with HTML, XML, VB or C#, and knows how to use Visual Studio.NET. DO NOT buy this book if you studying for Microsoft Certification exam/s, it's not intended for that purpose.

I am a Classic ASP developer. The company that I work for has recently decided to pursue .NET for future web development. This was the first book that I read in order to get a grasp of the changes from Classic ASP to ASP.NET. I have to say that this book was a GREAT introduction to a lot of the new features of ASP.NET.

There are a few things I would like to point out when considering buying this book:
1.This is a beginner book. No advanced topics.
2.Good coverage of the different types of controls available in .NET.
3.Quick and easy read.
4.Only basic coverage of ADO.NET.
5.Source code available as a download.
6.Assumes that you have VS.NET although I used ASP.NET Web Matrix.

There were some typos but nothing ridiculous.
Overall I like this book. Good price for a good book.

The title says it all; if you don't have a lot of time to read and just want examples that show you how to get started, this book is for you. The sections on validation controls and ADO.NET were particularly helpful to me: simple code that works, helping me gradually shift my paradigm while still being productive in the transition.

Although the appendices contain some lightweight "refresher" language and class references (which do what they are expected to do), your deeper needs may not be met here. If you need a more complete view of the .NET framework, try Steven Walther's ASP.NET Unleashed; on the other hand, if you want to get your brain around the web controls and data access that form the core of most ASP.NET applications, look no further than ASP.NET By Example. It does what it claims to do, without being everything to everyone... which works very well for its typical reader, the time-starved developer who just came to be shown how to get the job done.

Since I have read a lot of praises about this book I bought it and was astonished to find out that the font size is so small that I have needed a good magnifying glass to have been able to read it. Its other disadvantage is that it's lacking the English-Latin part, so what then, if someone needs to translate from English to Latin s/he should buy another dictionary. It's not a good bargain and I would not recommend it to anyone.

I ordered this dictionary after reading the reviews. I agree with the reviewer from Little Rock; the dictionary is very useful and contains a wealth of information on Latin words. It has been a great help for me in translating poets like Martial and Statius. I have difficulty understanding why the reviewer from Israel did not know this was a Latin to English only dictionary; the title clearly explains the purpose of this book. Also, the entries are a standard dictionary size font; they are not unusually small. Unless you want to buy a copy of the Oxford Latin Dictionary... then this dictionary will suit the needs of translating from Latin into English.

As a teacher of Latin for over 30 years, I highly recommend this dictionary. It is the most complete resource for the money available!! Since serious scholars do not need English to Latin transfers, this should not be a concern. Not only are the number of English meanings for Latin words of large and complete extent, but there are quotations from ancient writers to support how the Latin is used in context. My students from grades 7 through graduate school have used this dictionary with success. The only better one is the large Lewis-Short hardback dictionary.

Having now finished Sarah Smith's Vanished Child Trilogy, I can conclude that the sequel is rarely ever as good as the original.

While Vanished Child thrilled, and Knowledge of Water disappointed, A Citizen of the Country strives to bring readers once again into the dark clouds that hang over Alexander Von Reisden since he was recognized and proven to be the missing Richard Knight, who vanished at the age of 8 on the night his grandfather was murdered; himself being the killer.

But this time around, Reisden and wife Perdita are parents to a happy, healthy boy. However, Reisden and Perdita are far from happy themselves. Reisden mistrusts his nearly blind wife to care properly for their son; Perdita strives to understand why Reisden has distanced himself from Gilbert Knight, a surviving Uncle of Richard's, who can end the financial woes of Jouvet, the psychiatric facility that Reisden owns, nearly destroyed in the Paris flood described in The Knowledge of Water.

Enter Maurice Cyron, who holds the key to delivering a Government contract to Jouvet that will ensure its financial well-being for years to come. Cyron charges Reisden to complete a task begun long ago at Jouvet, to help put to rest the demons of his adopted son, Andre, a friend of Reisden's youth.

Andre, the unbalanced host of alter-ego Necrosar, writes dark, murderous plays for a 'Theater of Horror' in Paris. Being shut in with his dead parents for days when just a young boy seems to have permanently unhinged Andre, though he has married a beautiful young woman, Sabine, who obsesses with bearing a child for Necrosar, whom she worships, herself a witch.

Andre and Cyron bring Reisden and company to Montfort, Andre's ancestral home, to film a treatment of Macbeth, a la Necrosar, complete with the beheading of the heroine, played by Sabine, by guillotine, as the culmination of the film. But amidst all the make-believe death and gore, real bodies begin to turn up, and a mystery unfolds. Reisden and his friend Jules are blackmailed to uncover the 'secret of Montfort'...Jules' sister Ruthie uncovers Sabine's secret, and a witch's poison, which nearly claims her life. Tunnels below Montfort itself are found to be far more than just a challenging labyrinth, and Reisden is forced to overcome his owns demons about committing murder in order to help solve the mystery surrounding the death of one of the principal characters, lest an innocent person suffer the same fate.

Sound good? Technically it is...Smith delivers dark, gloomy prose, of the same ilk as Vanished Child. Citizen is far superior to Knowledge of Water, in the respect that, like Vanished Child, there was a central plot that the other sub-plots fed from, and that affected them all. The 'secret of Montfort', while not quite as exciting as I had hoped, feeds into all other plot-lines, like a body of water feeding tributaries. Many demons are laid to rest by the end of the story, which is one of its strengths, a 'satisfying' conclusion for several of the story threads.

But where the novel fails to live up to the original is a lack of excitement when the 'secret' is finally revealed. The so-called 'secret' of Montfort is lackluster at best, and really not enough to keep perpetuating its mention time and again as a plot line. Further, Smith shoots herself in the foot by foreshadowing the death of one of the principals in the story, so that when the event takes place, it is expected, and therefore not much of a shock. While the first novel held my interest until the end to find out 'the truth', this novel does not deliver the same satisfaction. A contrived 'resolution' (from the characters of the novel) does not really answer one of the major questions of the story; the identity of the person who commits the 'shocking' murder. It seems as though Smith, in the hopes of a resolution for all the characters involved, left out a resolution for the reader.

That said, I do recommend reading this book if you have already read the other two. Without having them as a background, many things here will not make much sense to a reader, and although the story can be read autonomously, a foundation of the first two parts of this trilogy only adds to the overall read.

I sincerely hope that Smith will revisit the characters, and expand this trilogy into something larger. She is a capable writer, with a talent for creating a hazy, gloomy setting, and painting equally despairing characters to populate that setting.

A Citizen of the Country succeeded where The Knowledge of Water failed, in that it was truly worthy of being called a sequel to the tremendous opening book, The Vanished Child. While typically complex, the mystery plot here was at least understandable. But, as always, the key to these novels is the human plot introduced in the Vanished Child, and the denouement of that plot here was just fantastic; it was truly a payoff for people who have read all the books in the trilogy. Hopefully, the author will reconsider her decision to make this only a trilogy, and write one more episode set during World War One. The ending of this book certainly sets up the possibility of such a sequel. All in all, this was a great read, and anyone who may have been slightly turned off of this series by The Knowledge of Water should definitely give this book a try.

A true sequel to the marvelous Vanished Child. Though I enjoyed Knowledge of Water perhaps more than some of the other readers writing here, this third volume is much, much better. Don't stop here whatever you do, Sarah -- when can I expect a fourth volume?

this is a comedy only in the sense that the play ends well - ie, noone dies, most everyone is happy. else, there's little humor in this comedy, save for the knave, lucio. like others here have pointed out, this is actually a pretty serious play that takes a pretty hard look at human weakness, particularly lust. there are some fine, impassioned speeches by claudio and his sister, who pleads for his life. worth a read. but don't expect any laughs.

One of Shakespeare's lesser read and lesser performed plays, Measure for Measure profoundly explores the themes of justice and mercy. This exploration compensates for the defects of the play: the unbelievable resolution, the Duke's refusal to interfere early on (which causes pain to the characters), the inconsistency in the application of morality (Isabella considers it wrong for the betrothed Claudio and Juliet to have sex but justifies--and even helps to arrange--it between Angelo and Mariana), and the unexpected suddenness of the Duke's proposal to Isabella. The play seriously weighs the concerns of justice and mercy, and although it ultimately favors mercy, it recognizes the complexity of the issue. How can one practice mercy and yet restrain vice? How can one "hate the sin" yet "love the sinner?" Mercy seems to be the necessary choice over justice because man is too fallen to bear the brunt of justice. "Judge not lest ye be judged. For with what measure you mete," said Christ, "it shall be measured unto you." If you hold a high standard for others (as does Angelo for Claudio) and yet fall short of it yourself, you will be judged by the same standard. Since we seem destined to fall short of righteousness, it is best to practice forgiveness, so that we too may be judged lightly. And yet there is a concern that such practice of forgiveness will lead to a laxity that permits vice to flourish (which is the reason the Duke leaves Angelo in charge in the first place). Though mercy and forgiveness are favored, the arguments in favor of justice are not simply dismissed.

Quote: "Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done.
Mine were the very cipher of a function,
To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor." (II.ii.38-42)

Measure for Measure is seldom read, and not often performed in the United States. Why? Although many of Shakespeare's plays deal bluntly with sexual issues, Measure for Measure does so in an unusually ugly and disgusting way for Shakespeare. This play is probably best suited for adults, as a result.

I see Measure for Measure as closest to The Merchant of Venice in its themes. Of the two plays, I prefer Measure for Measure for its unremitting look at the arbitrariness of laws, public hypocrisy and private venality, support for virtue, and encouragement of tempering public justice with common sense and mercy.

The play opens with Duke Vincentio turning over his authority to his deputy, Angelo. But while the duke says he is leaving for Poland, he in fact remains in Vienna posing as a friar. Angelo begins meting out justice according to the letter of the law. His first act is to condemn Claudio to death for impregnating Juliet. The two are willing to marry, but Angelo is not interested in finding a solution. In despair, Claudio gets word to his sister, the beautiful Isabella, that he is to be executed and prays that she will beg for mercy. Despite knowing that Isabella is a virgin novice who is about to take her vows, Angelo cruelly offers to release Claudio of Isabella will make herself sexually available to Angelo. The Duke works his influence behind the scenes to help create justice.

Although this play is a "comedy" in Shakespearean terms, the tension throughout is much more like a tragedy. In fact, there are powerful scenes where Shakespeare draws on foolish servants of the law to make his points clear. These serve a similar role of lessening the darkness to that of the gravediggers in Hamlet.

One of the things I like best about Measure for Measure is that the resolution is kept hidden better than in most of the comedies. As a result, the heavy and rising tension is only relieved right at the end. The relief you will feel at the end of act five will be very great, if you are like me.

After you read this play, I suggest that you compare Isabella and Portia. Why did Shakespeare choose two such strong women to be placed at the center of establishing justice? Could it have anything to do with wanting to establish the rightness of the heart? If you think so, reflect that both Isabella and Portia are tough in demanding that what is right be done. After you finish thinking about those two characters, you may also enjoy comparing King Lear and Claudio. What was their fault? What was their salvation? Why? What point is Shakespeare making? Finally, think about Angelo. Is he the norm or the exception in society? What makes someone act like Angelo does here? What is a person naturally going to do in his situation?

Look for fairness in all that you say and do!