Professor Hein begins with a short biography of the author, and then proceeds to explain the author's work, examining its theology and significance. I found this book to be quite fascinating, with the author giving me a look at these masterpieces of Christian literature in a way that I had never thought of before. If you are a fan of any of the authors above, then I highly recommend that you get this book!

At the urging of Inspector Field, the three associates decide to investigate the murder of the don. Although they have worked previous cases, Dickens, Wilkie, and Dodgson remain writers/wannabe authors playing amateur sleuths. Their actions soon place their very lives and that of Dickens' mistress in danger from an unknown assailant.

The fourth Dickens-Collins Victorian mystery is a clever who-done-it, populated by literary references and their associated footnotes. The story line is fun although the use of Victorian era dialect makes one wonder if Dickens is heading in the direction of Chaucer and Shakespeare, difficult to read without a translator. The plot belongs to the trio of writers as the audience sees a glimpse of them beyond the classroom and outside their novels.

Harriet Klausner

Whether you're a student doing research or a farmer/rancher looking for a way to escape the heartache/headache of cattle, this is the best book you could hope to find.

Men Against the Sea begins with the mutiny and describes what happens to Captain Bligh and those he commands as they make their way eventually to the Dutch settlement of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. Along the way, Captain Bligh and his men traverse around 3,600 miles in their fragile vessel while suffering many horrors including attacks from the native people, lack of sleep, storms, bailing for their lives, cold, thirst, too much sun, and hunger. The authors make a good decision in choosing to have the ship's surgeon serve as the narrator of this saga. This perspective made it possible for the book to include his physical descriptions of the deprivations of the Bounty's abandoned crew to help make the story more compelling. In the true spirit of a story about English tars, there is a considerable discussion of how the starvation the men experienced affected their intestinal tracts.

Captain Bligh comes across very poorly in Mutiny on the Bounty. The opposite occurs in Men Against the Sea. His leadership is one of the great accomplishments of seamanship of all time. Throughout the troubled voyage to the first landing at the Dutch settlement on Timor, Captain Bligh only lost one man. Captain Bligh also comes across as a brave, worthy, and dedicated sailor who is more than willing to share the deprivations of his men. In one stretch, he mans the tiller for 36 straight hours despite being exhausted. At the same time, even the most querulous of the crew usually keep their silence.

But the men are only human after all. Someone steals two pounds of pork. Another shipmate sent to capture birds is overcome by the need to eat them, and spoils the hunting for everyone. In their weakened state, they miss many wonderful chances for food. When they reach civilization and begin to recover from their privations, complaining quickly returns.

My test of how well written such an adventure tale is that I often felt like I was in the boat struggling with them. The main weakness of the book is that it skips many days on end, when the circumstances were at their most dire such as during unending days of storms. By doing this, the reader is denied the chance to have the full horror of the crossing bear down more strongly.

Most of the weaknesses of Mutiny on the Bounty are overcome in Men Against the Sea. So if you found that work unappealing, give this one a chance. It has many of the qualities of great survival and adventure books.

After you finish this remarkable tale, I suggest you think about the ways that adversity brings out the best in you. How can you do as well when times and circumstance are not adverse?

Squarely face the challenge, with confidence that success will follow!

Read it for yourself. Such books makes being an avid reader so much fun!

Fletcher Christian and his mutineers allow Bligh and his loyalists no guns, three cutlasses, a small medical kit, and a pitiful store of water and victuals. Their boat must skirt all inhabited islands because they had no gifts to give to the natives -- which in the islands at that time meant that they were risking attack every time. Their water supply came from rainstorms and occasional landings for food. They had no gear for fishing. All they had to go on were Bligh's knowledge and guts.

I actually prefer this book to MUTINY and now eagerly look forward to seeing if PITCAIRN'S ISLAND, the third volume in the trilogy, is as good.

The best short reference on each college is the Princeton Review of The Best (311) Colleges. It gives ratings of academic quality, difficulty of admission, percentage admitted, etc. There is also a brief summary of college life and what each place might be looking for.

Peterson Guide is comprehensive, and has long write-ups for each school. There is a front section for each school, listed alphabetically within each state, and a back section with detailed profiles of selected institutions.

Fiske's guide is interesting, but he basically has something good to say for each school, so careful reading between the lines and for "damning with faint praise" is called for.

The Yale Insider's Guide is extremely subjective, with different students writing various reviews. We did not find it too reliable, except in conjunction with other books.

Likewise for Barrron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges. Recent alumni write of their (invariably positive) experiences. Take it with a grain of salt, or read carefully between the lines.

Choosing the Right College by ISN was extremely helpful. Some readers criticized it for being allegedly right wing. We did not find it so. Rather, knowing the point of view of the authors helped us evaluate their observations. Other books do not make their biases explicit. A feature of the book we found particularly helpful was the naming of excellent professors and departments in each college.

Antonoff's College Finder was interesting only in conjunction with other books.

Three books written from the perspective of college admissions officers were very interesting and helpful. They are The College Admissions Mystique, by Mayher, Getting In, by Bill Paul, and most of all A is for Admission by Michelle Hernandez. We strongly recommend that parents and the kids who are the applicants read at least one of these.

Another very helpful book was You're Gonna Love This College Guide, by Marty Nemko. It takes the student through the decision process of big vs. small, urban vs. country, elite vs. the level just below, geography, and so forth. That really got our daughter unstuck in her thinking process.

Loren Pope is another helpful author for those who think that not getting into Harvard is the end of the world.

Three books we did not find to be particularly helpful are Getting Into Any College, by Jim Good and Lisa Lee, The National Review College Guide, by Charles Sykes and Brad Miner (too out of date), and The Real Freshman Handbook, by Jennifer Hanson.

One book we found to be unexpectedly useful was Getting Into Medical School Today, by Scott Plantz, et. al. Even if your child is not interested in medical school, this book puts college in perspective for any post-college program.

We hope readers find our review helpful.

This is a great guide to where you'll find a good, solid liberal arts curriculum. If your idea of a solid liberal arts curriculum does not match the author's, then the text is certainly useful as a way to eliminate schools from your list.

We discovered Schenectady's Union College in this guide, went to visit, and were so impressed, we put it on my child's list of schools to apply to. We would never have considered it, without this guide book.

Contrary to popular belief, I'm fast coming round to the idea that Williams was a *philosophical* writer rather than a *religious* writer. And not only because he himself described his seven novels as "metaphysical thrillers".

Unlike "Descent into Hell" - which is quite frankly an overwrought gothic monstrosity - "Many Dimensions" is a 'typical' Williams story, with standard English prose (standard for the 1930s, that is), a straightforward plotline and plenty of pace. In fact you could put "Many Dimensions" up against later fiction of a similar tone - like Dennis Wheatley, for example (not very well-known now, but immensely popular in the 50s and 60s) - and be hard put to pick a winner.

So where does the philosophy come in?
Primarily in the form of a series of very basic, but also very important, questions that lie just below the surface of the story - and sometimes not even below the surface.

Questions like: "If you can restore all of the people in group A to health, but in the process throw at least an equal number of people in group B out of work - at a time when work isn't that easy to come by in the first place - which group should take priority?"

This question, and others closely related, run all through the story yet, due to Williams' writing skill, they do nothing to impede the plot unless the reader actively chooses to think them through.

The final answer Williams gives, I *think*, is that there is no *easy* answer. Only he frames his conclusion far more lucid and impactful manner than that last observation might suggest.

In short, this writing has the power to enthrall and satisfy a wide range of readers.
The only reason I don't give it five stars is because the literary style is typical of British writing in the 1930s, which I guess won't necessarily be to everyone's taste.
Having said which, I really do recommend the majority of Williams' novels as a taste worth acquiring.

Oh yes, why did I give this review the title "Does God Play Dice?"? When you read the book I think you'll know exactly why.
Good reading!

Williams combines an ultimately serious theme with high poetry, good plot and characters, and his highly individual treatment of the supernatural and mysticism for a very satisfying read (and re-read).

The picture which Williams chose for The Place Of The Lion is this Platonic one. It so happens that on one occasion, Mr. Berringer's meditation is deep enough to cause a rupture in the divide between the outer and inner worlds. He is out walking in a condition almost of trance, deep in meditation upon the Platonic idea of strength and kingship, using the archetypal image of a lion. In this state, it so happens that his path is crossed by a real lioness which has escaped from a local circus or zoo. The animal attacks him but the remarkable result is that the lioness vanishes into thin air, and Berringer falls into a cataleptic trance, while the mighty figure of a maned lion is seen walking away - the very archetypal image on which he had been meditating.
Bizarre huh? It's only beginning. He now lies in a coma, and his home and the surrounding area become the place of severe archetypal activity. At one point, the archetypal enormous butterfly appears and all the normal butterflys of the world fly back into it. Totally wild.
I cannot begin to scratch the surface of all the very strange happenings that take place in the book, but I think overall it is meaning to say that man ought to be able to rule all of these forces. There is one man in the book that does, and the story ends with him as a second Adam "naming the beasts" and establishing dominion over them.
To "get it" and maintain interest in this book a reader should have a pre-familiarity with Platonic theory. It is by no means an easy read.

The quality of the printing and photo reproduction, in the paperback version I read, was very good.

English language books on modern French history are not abundant. This is a excellant volume to start off with or
add to a collection.