Most readers of "The Rebel Who Lost His Cause" will probably conclude that John Beckett led a fascinating life during extraordinary times. Nevertheless, the author lets the story drag throughout much of the work, making a 215-page book feel much longer. The author depends too heavily on Beckett's own writings. Given that the author is the son of the book's subject, I would have liked to see a greater number of sources and more perspectives in this work. An author would have to TRY to make Beckett's life seem dull, but somehow, the author succeeded at doing just that.

The Rebel Who Lost His Cause: The Tragedy of John Beckett, MP is a detailed and honest biography of the British Left Wing Labour MP who became the third ranking Fascist in Britain at the time of World War II. His career was one that was constantly accompanied by controversy and drama. His natural intelligence and wit, allied to his strong stands on contentious issues, marked Beckett for checkered Parliamentary life, but it was his association with Oswald Mosley that set many of his friends against him and brought an unsatisfactory end to a dramatic and traumatic public life. Biographer Francis Beckett provides an accurate, insightful, memorable, highly recommended account of a gifted, controversial man in a time marked by the drama of warring political philosophies, armies, and personalities.

This book is a worthwhile guide to McBrien's odd biases. As a noted 'dissenter', this book should be a great comfort and resource to like-minded people.

To those looking for a credible, well-written guide to Saints - those chosen by God as exemplars off heroic virtue, the book will not do at all. A few lines on great, wildly popular modern saints such as Faustina and Padre Pio? But longer disquisitions on McBrien hobbyhorses such as Albert Schweitzer. Martin Luther King, and Cardinal Bernardin? Please.

Disappointing is the only way to describe this book. Despite its potential - fine quality pages, saints for every day of the year, plus additional information on Church history and spiritual movements within the Church -this book simple failed to deliver for what I was looking for - daily readings on the saints that might be interesting, provoking, and inspiring.

Instead I found this to be yet another in a long list of saint books that provides for the most part a very dry and hurried account of dates and accomplishments - squeezed into a paragraph or two for many saints. Worse is reading a whole page on a saint without finding anything remotely interesting. After awhile you guess what is going to be written. I.E. "spent time helping the poor, reforming prostitutes..."

Spare yourself these boring accounts that I found quite biased and inaccurate at times. (This is not a shot at the author - I just happen to be familiar with much literature on a few saints and can easily spot inaccuracies).

For an exceptional book on saints, check out on amazon 'Voices of the Saints'.

Lives of the Saints
Richard McBrien

McBrien's compilation of saints for each day covers a multitude of canonized and non-canonized people. He also offers saints who are recognized by the Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran and Greek Orthodox churches. His descriptions are short, comparatively with Butler's descriptions, but non-devotional. He includes in his short essays references to history, legend and myth. This book can exist along side other longer works and can offer some perspectives that others do not.

Bannon writes haphazardly and with no structure whatsoever, all he seems to be concerned with is filling the pages of his borderland history with insignificant missionary characters who play little part in the development of the Spanish frontier. The book is boring and very disjointed and difficult to read.

As one of the volumes in the Holt, Rinehart and Winston "Histories of the American Frontier" series, this work provides an extensive look at Spanish expansion and activities in what was called by Herbert Eugene Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands, from the 1513 landing of Juan Ponce de León in Florida, to Mexican Independence in 1821. Utilizing an extensive array of primary and secondary source materials, he traces the history of Spanish northward movement out of Aztec Mexico in three separate pronged movements in time-one up the West coast of Mexico; the second up through what is now New Mexico and the last into Texas. He essentially points out a difference between Anglo-American approaches and the Spanish, seeing the areas of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California which are presented as basically defensive enclaves, especially after the late 18th century. Importantly, those that moved north into what later became part of the United States did not enjoy the overall freedom that their counterparts further north later enjoyed. A basic thesis is that Spain did not allow the "rugged individualism" so notably applicable to the Anglo-Americans. Initially motivated by avarice, the Conquistador's explored great portions of areas now incorporated into the United States. Nonetheless, after 1543, the Spanish were driven more by a genuine religious concern for Amerindians, influenced greatly by the Franciscan and Dominicans, and somewhat the Jesuits. Hence, using the mission church to convert and pacify Indians, the presidio became a support to an essentially religious motive with a civil end-for which they were quite successful until they met the nomadic Indians from the Plains. Bannon's narrative, at times, seems overburdened with details and names, but this is the nature of historical writing. Overall, this book will be more appreciated by those already possessing a good knowledge of American history; in the end, Bannon effectively carried on the work of his mentor, Bolton, providing a more complete look at a part of history that has been essentially overlooked

This book is the Chinese Character text for DeFrancis' "Beginning Chinese." There are two theories regarding teaching written Chinese to foreigners. One is that you should treat it as a separate subject in the earlier stages of learning the language. For those who agree with this premise, there is DeFrancis' two volume "Beginning Chinese Reader."

The other school believes that students should learn how to write what they learn how to say. For educators who prefer this approach, DeFrancis prepared "Character Text."

If you're a teacher, you can come to your own conclusions without further input from me. If you're trying to teach yourself to read and write Chinese, I recommend that you use the readers rather than this book; learning to write Chinese is a task in itself that has little to do with linguistics. You can read my review of the Readers under their proper site, if you're interested in pursuing the matter.

The book supplied the reader with good information about places in St. Paul (and the surrounding area) where F. Scott Fitzgerald could be found in his early years. There were also a lot of pictures of the houses and buildings. It would have been nice to have more details, however, instead of just having a brief description of the locations.

The main character, private detective John Cuddy, has depth, but few of the supporting characters do - including the ones killed off. Although you are given many characters who dislike the victims, you don't get to know them very well. It feels as if you're given just the bare personality essentials so the author can get on with the story. The story is woven well, taking you off in many directions and showing you many suspects with motive. The story limps to an end, however, with the most unlikely, and least developed character as the killer. Only then are you allowed insight to his personality and given a motive. It's a page turner, without a doubt. But the story moves very fast and you are led to believe that you will learn more about all the suspects in the next turn of the page. It's a tease. You devour the story hoping to get to know the characters better but you are handed the killer far too easily in the last few pages. Although the murder is committed in Maine, the book may be a bit more enjoyable for those who live or work in and around Boston. Detective Cuddy lives and spends time in Boston. The surroundings are described in great detail, but without any profound impact or connection to the story.

A variety of commonly recognized animals are profiled with respect to the level and type of care that the parents may give. The artwork and colors are very appealing. I see this book as a great resource for elementary teachers to address survival adaptations in different species. I would recommend pairing this book with "Growing Up:Alone."

Though the KS is infamous as a how-to manual on sex, the section on intercourse is actually quite a small portion of the book. Interesting, but not very scandalous at all; a catalogue of some of the most minor things, down to different kinds of shapes that your teeth leave when you bite your lover. Makes you wonder how some people have this much time. The rest of the KS is a great look into the social and cultural thought of India back then, and is also worth a read.

This book has at least 10 authors and is fun to read for the first few chapters. Then I really got annoyed to read the same things over and over again and at the same time I missed some more in depth explanations. A lot is done with the framework itself. This is probably due to the very early delivery date of the book. Though I really enjoyed the C# example (game of life) I think you be better served with Hollis, Lhotka "VB.Net Programming". Also there seem to be quite a few other books out by now.

This is a good introduction to .net, as the cover says, but me thinks it was just a ploy to make money. Not very useful at all, but if you are a beginner to .NET, then you might want to browse through it to get a general feel for the framework.

I have purchased several Dot Net books as of late. I thought the book was very thorough as an overview. This book was not intended to be a programmers guide to any single language in the Dot Net suite. But if you want a book to give you some insight as to what Dot Net is all about, this is a great place to start. I also purchased Wrox "Programming C# with the public Beta", although this book is being replaced with Professional C#, I still learned much from this title as well.

This X-Men story takes place in an alternate history where Charles Xavier died before he formed the X-Men and where humans and mutants have waged war for decades. It focuses on Scott and Alex Summers, two brothers who are mutants and who must confront a deadly mystery on the fate of their father, Chris Summers. It contains a shocking ending which makes you realize that this world has little reason for hope.