the countes of monte cristo is a suburb read for any alexander dumas fan. although not as good as its counterpart The count of monte cristo it has its moments. another great read is Edmond Dantes.

This is a story about something that happened while Dumas was travelling in Corsica. I gave this book three stars because the plot didn't move fast enough, not at all like Dumas's other tales.

i had always wondered why it was near impossible to find this book, unlike the other dumas novels which had been turned into movies. the reason is apparent; the book has nothing to do with the movie, beyond the notion of sympathetic twins.

yet this is a nice read, more of a novella than a short story -- you should be able to finish it in two hours. and it gives a nice idea of that travel writer that dumas was, tho we barely know him as such. this is a good travelog of 19th century corsica (and certainly more readable than trash like thoreau's bloated "cape cod".)

don't expect d'artagnan or edmond dantes, but settle in for a pleasant afternoon's read.

As The Corsican Brothers is one of Dumas' less popular works (I'm not sure if I should call it a novella or a short story), I expected it to be fairly dry: either very historical or very travel-oriented. It IS travel-oriented, and one CAN see the travel writer incarnation of Dumas, but it is far from boring and does not lack for interesting characters. The brothers may not have the relentless adventures of D'Artagnan, but they leap off the page and make themselves unforgettable nonetheless. There are some beautifully humorous moments as well (Dumas walks into one brother's library and checks to see if the man has any Dumas books!). If I had to compare this work to a more famous Dumas work, though, I would compare it to "A Masked Ball." Short, quick to read, using Dumas himself as narrator, and brilliant. I very much reccomend this one.

This lucid, admirably written, and fully illustrated study by a noted French scholar and Egyptologist surveys the rise and decline of Egyptian culture through thirty centuries. Divided into three sections, the 1927 classic presents the history of Egypt in an absolutely new light, focusing in Part I on the country itself?early social organization, dynasties and divine kingdoms, nomes (or provinces) of the delta, and more. Part II covers kinship and society, including the protohistoric monarchy, the earliest royal institutions, the feudal period and social revolutions, the rule of just laws, and other topics.
Part III is devoted to a vigorous summary of intellectual life, including religion, art, and science, with detailed discussions of the growing complexity of Egyptian religion and the position of such gods as Ra and Osiris in the Egyptian pantheon; the practice of magic; morality and personal piety; the design and construction of temples and tombs; geometry and mathematics; medicine; astronomy; literature; and much else.
Enlivened with picturesque details and quotations that take readers into the heart of a glorious civilization, this profusely illustrated, comprehensive, and perceptive view of ancient Egypt remains "an excellent study, thorough, careful, intelligent, and above all, readable."?New Republic. It will appeal to general readers as well as scholars.

If you have been mesmerised by Dumas' other work of fiction such as the Count of Monte Cristo you will not be disappointed with this extraordinary piece of story telling. Focussing on the historical events of the marriage of Margaret de Valois to the Protestant King of Navarre, Dumas brings to life the extraordinary events which saw the bloody massacre of the Hugenots and the treacherous murder and betrayal which ran through the veins of evil Catherine de Medici, mother of Margaret and enemy to the hapless King of Navarre. Beautiful plot, outstanding characters - the master story teller weaves his magic again. Highly recommended for those who love intrigue, historical novels and a book you wont be able to put down.

This audio book is available only in an abridged version. While I normally do not care to bother with abridged audio books, I am a big fan of Mary Stuart, the hapless Queen of Scots, as well as a Julie Christie fan, so I was game to try it.

This audio book was better than I thought it would be, given that it is abridged. This is in large part due to Julie Christie's rousing reading. Ms. Christie reads with great spirit and verve, her diction crystal clear. She seamlessly transitions between Scottish and English accents, infusing the characters with distinct personalities and creating a sense of atmosphere. Ms. Christie simply does a beautiful job reading this book.

This book by Alexandre Dumas is very good, though literary license is evidently taken. It encompasses Mary's early childhood, her sojourn in France, her return to Scotland as Queen, the intrusion of fire and brimstone religious reformer, John Knox, into the political arena, the perfidy of James, her illegitimate half-brother, the unhappy marriage to Lord Darnley and his murder, her alliance with Lord Bothwell, abdication, exile in England, and execution.

The time spent focusing on Mary's last will and testament, however, is inordinately long and somewhat puzzling. It would probably have been better spent focusing more on her alliance with Lord Bothwell or on the political perfidy of her power hungry, illegitimate half-brother, James. Both would play a large part in Mary's downfall and ultimate loss of the throne of Scotland.

Still, for those who are fans of Mary Stuart and for those who would like a brief and breezy overview of her life, this abridged audio book might just be the ticket. The book is contained on four cassettes, which provide six hours of reading pleasure.

Alexandre Dumas is a real master teller. He is so knowledgeable of the history that you can never tell between that fact and the fiction. You almost feel like living in the 16th century. You can sense it.

The abridged version is to the damage of the story. It has not been very carefully selected which parts to leave out or which parts to shorten. Sometimes it takes a while to realize that the story jumped forward in time and some parts are being given an unnecessary extend (the decription of Mary's will, for exemple). Also the part describing her execution is a bit too morbide.

But in any case, this is a great piece of work. It has both its entertaining and historical value.

The performance of the reader - Julie Christie - is excellent. She switches from English to Scottish to French accent to support the atmosphere and her voice is clear and easy to follow. I can highly recommend to buy it.

"The Count of Monte Cristo" is an excellent choice to read. Its length is a bit long, yet it is very interesting. The story starts off with a young man, Edmund Dantes, who is a sailor on a merchant ship. Two men, one who wants his fiance, and another who wants his high rank on the ship, plot together to rid themselves of him and gain the spoils. He eventually ends up in a prison very far away, where he meets another prison captive, an old man, whom he discovers held a very high religious position. He then escapes and joins a group of pirates. He finds a mass of buried treasure, of which the old man had told him the location of. Using his newfound fortune, he returns to his homeland to avenge himself. "The Count of Monte Cristo" has excellent word usage, and the author does an excellent job of manipulating the English language. The story has a very smooth flow, with many peaks of excitement. Dumas has an excellent talent for suspense, which is plainly shown in "The Count of Monte Cristo". Although the book is a bit long and droll in the beginning, while it explains the story to the reader, it becomes much more interesting as the tale goes on. Soon, the reader is enraptured by the exciting, dramatic, and tragic plot. Dumas unveils great emotion and compulsion, which he shares with the reader in his book. Overall, the book is an excellent pick for leisure-time reading and offers a great array of entertainment.

This slender, surprisingly thorough volume provides an insider's view of four region's storm-tossed financial crises (Latin America, '82, Mexico '94, Asia, '98 and Russia '98). Author Alexandre Lamfalussy, a key figure at the Bank for International Settlements during some of these crises, discusses the history of these events and the problems confronting crisis managers at the time. He lays out the critical background facts of each crisis and draws clear commonalties and contrasts among them. He also offers thoughtful, reasonable prescriptions for avoiding, minimizing and managing future crises. Then, he points out some little-discussed aspects of globalization in the developed world, which contributed to the crises. Though Lamfalussy's style is dense and somewhat academic, his content is worth the work. We at getAbstract recommend this book as valuable reading (and a financial lifejacket) for anyone doing business or investing in an emerging market, for corporate executives working abroad and for public policy makers worldwide.

I truly loved the first three Guardians of the Flame novels, which is why it was so sad reading this book. This new book starts off slow, continues on at a plodding pace until the last 80 pages, and just when it starts to get good, it's all over. The characterization is wonderfull, as always. Joel Rosenberg is a master of that. Unfortunately, the plot has fallen by the wayside. A description of many tiny misadventures that befall the heroes seems to be a substitute for a plot: you hear all about their trip in excruciating detail. You keep waiting for the plot to advance, and it hardly budges until the very end. The first three Guardians of the Flame books were great, but this one has the feel of 'a day in the life of three soldiers loyal to Barony Cullinane' rather than offering a fast paced and interesting plot that initially made this series so enjoyable. I would give it one star, but since the characterization is of the same high quality I expect from Rosenburg, I give it two.

As so many others who have read these books I too find myself locked away in the linen closet till the book is done. Wow what a great way to compose a story from three supporting characters of past novels! However I must admitt that I am stuck on Jason and his epic tale to come. This one was a good buffer to wet our taste buds but I was a little dissapointed to find out that this was not the Jason story! Oh well, I still really enjoyed this book and Rosenberg is now the only fantasy author that I will read! Just because his stuff is: THAT GOOD! So do yourself a favor and pick this up or you will miss out on an inportant part of the GUARDIANS saga.

Joel Rosenberg returns to my favorite ongoing fantasy world with "Not Exactly the Three Musketeers" It is both a departure and a return for the author. The departure is that the characters that we have read about for seven previous novels are background material in this novel. Previous backround characters are now the focus.

The return is in that the authors incredible flair for heroic fantasy is back. His descriptions of battle and the warriors that fight in it are exemplary. He shows the motivations behind all these "heroes", and that is what truly makes this, and all the Guardians books, wonderfull.

I was a bit disappointed not seeing Ahira, Ricetti or Andrea at all. Walters role, while prevalent was smaller than we have come to expect. None of the lingering questions from previous books were addressed in this novel.

I for one look forward to the next addition to this series. Anyone that wants to chat, comment or speculate with me on the series, please mail to jerric@mediaone.net

this is a book that in iy opinion fails in his target. Not that it does not have its very usefull points (for example I liked very much some entries in the vocabulary chapter), but because it seems to me that its authors (brilliant in their fields) are not the best qualiffied for the global view they are after. Perhaps even such a global view is not even really usefull.

First of all the authors fail to see the deepest message of modern physics: physics is a branch of mathemeatics like geometry or stochastics or logic and that all mathematics is an abstract science which in order to be complete should consist of all disciplines from logic to physics. The authors fail to see this abstractness of physics and so erroneously separate physics from mathematics (the latter it is not recognized as a natural science but is thought as a kind of religion) but evn more wrongly they treat biology and economics as separate from the realm of applications of physics. We do now (in the modern world which the authors probably do not understand fully) know that both of the latter disciplines can be understood through physics (but they are not applications of physics in specific and mathematics in general as the authors many times naively imply). That is why we have the principles of biophysics and econophysics!

Many nice discussions are found of cource, the chaper on turbulence in fluid mechanics was particularly good, but other chapters (ex physical theories) although usefull, were not showing the depth of an exposition one has for example in Penrose's two books. In addition the complete lack of mathematics from the book made the authors many times to resort to linguistic exposition which is boring to the specialist and baffling to the novice.

Perhaps for this reason this book never became a classic against the enthoussiastic (and good) intro by Mr Hunt.