In my daydreams, every poet has read this book (edition #2 I can vouch for), as well as the books "Western Wind" and "In the Palm of Your Hand" and gorgeous, flexing poems are lying about everywhere. It could happen.

I re-read the book after taking the course and found it even more helpful in reflecting on the course.

Michelle Boisseau is one of our most talented and hard-working poets. Her approach is as clearly revealed in this book as any poet could hope to impart.

Don't read this book expecting to come out a poet, but read this book and plan on learning a great deal about the process of writing poetry.

The book begins with the battle of Mons Graupius (83 or 84 A.D.), where the Roman general Gnaeus Agricola defeats a numerically superior Cruithne force, led by Calgacus. The Romans view the Highland natives as backward, unwashed, illiterate "barbarians," and they are bent on subjugating and enslaving them. One of the slaves, the beautiful Alecia, is the key figure in the book. Captured after the battle, she gives birth to four children by three different men, all important characters in the book. In turn, one of her sons becomes a key figure (fictitious though he may be) in his own right.

Alecia is brought to Rome by General Agricola and meets many important people, including the murderous, paranoid emperor Domitian, as well as Epictetus, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus. Alecia (and we) learn about some of the good aspects of the Romans' "advanced" civilization (mainly books, bathing, and fine clothing), but also the bad (slavery, military conquest, and political assassination).

Alecia gets back to her homeland, and an even more aggressive military leader than Agricola conducts a genocidal campaign against the Cruithne, who are now led by a young military genius. By now, we also have discovered that the Highland civilization is to be admired in many respects, in terms of farming, architecture, and even its dying of fabrics. The book culminates in the battle
between the Ninth Legion of the Roman Empire and the Cruithne tribal forces in 117 A.D. in a well described and exciting account by the author.

The novel seems to be fairly accurate and is based largely on the writings of Tacitus. There are a few dull spots, but it kept my interest very well, particularly for the last half of the book (which I read in a day). The characters are developed well, with the Cruithne almost always good, but all the Romans are not evil (there are plenty of decent chaps, with some peacemakers thrown in). The issue of the Cruithne sacrificing humans for religious reasons is not really addressed. In addition, I thought it was a little far-fetched that two characters (one an animal!) died of broken hearts.

All in all, most of this novel was engrossing, informative, and seemed accurate. I recommend it to all readers who are interested in Scottish and Roman history, and in military campaigns. There is also plenty of romance.

This fictional book is set in the historical context of the pre-Scottish people of Scotland known as the Picts, and it is highly readable if somewhat limited in appeal to those readers who may be interested in ancient history, the Romans, Scotland, Britain and the Celts.

The story begins with the famous battle of Mons Grampius, where Roman soldiers, under the direction of Agricola, demolished a hugely superior Pictish horde during the early days of Roman exploration into Caledonia.

Agricola, who is one of the main characters of the book captures a Celtic girl, who happens to be the Queen of the leader of the locals. She is pregnant, gives birth to a son, gets pregnant by the General, goes to Rome, leaves her Celtic heir behind, returns to Britain with her half-Latin son.... well - I better not give it all away.

It is written in the grand manner of Talbot Mundy and Robert E. Howard, who both wrote about the Romans, Picts and Celts, and just like those granmasters of the genre, it is highly readable and entertaining (although my own personal pet peeve is the assumption by the author that the Picts were Celts themselves, a fact which is still hotly debated).

The book begins with the battle of Mons Graupius (83 or 84 A.D.), where the Roman general Gnaeus Agricola defeats a numerically superior Cruithne force, led by Calgacus. The Romans view the Highland natives as backward, unwashed, illiterate "barbarians," and they are bent on subjugating and enslaving them. One of the slaves, the beautiful Alecia, is the key figure in the book. Captured after the battle, she gives birth to four children by three different men, all important characters in the book. In turn, one of her sons becomes a key figure (fictitious though he may be) in his own right.

Alecia is brought to Rome by General Agricola and meets many important people, including the murderous, paranoid emperor Domitian, as well as Epictetus, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus. Alecia (and we) learn about some of the good aspects of the Romans' "advanced" civilization (mainly books, bathing, and fine clothing), but also the bad (slavery, military conquest, and political assassination).

Alecia gets back to her homeland, and an even more aggressive military leader than Agricola conducts a genocidal campaign against the Cruithne, who are now led by a young military genius. By now, we also have discovered that the Highland civilization is to be admired in many respects, in terms of farming, architecture, and even its dying of fabrics. The book culminates in the battle between the Ninth Legion of the Roman Empire and the Cruithne tribal forces in 117 A.D. in a well described and exciting account by the author.

The novel seems to be fairly accurate and is based largely on the writings of Tacitus. There are a few dull spots, but it kept my interest very well, particularly for the last half of the book (which I read in a day). The characters are developed well, with the Cruithne almost always good, but all the Romans are not evil (there are plenty of decent chaps, with some peacemakers thrown in). The issue of the Cruithne sacrificing humans for religious reasons is not really addressed. In addition, I thought it was a little far-fetched that two characters (one an animal!) died of broken hearts.

All in all, most of this novel was engrossing, informative, and seemed accurate. I recommend it to all readers who are interested in Scottish and Roman history, and in military campaigns. There is also plenty of romance.

While awaiting the delivery of it, I thought I'd get a "leg up" by viewing an Office 97 Interactive Beginner Tutorial CD collection by LearnKey. I thought, at the very least, the book would reiterate, if not enhance the material covered in the LearnKey BEGINNER tutorials. I thought wrong. As it turned out, I learned a LOT more from LearnKey than I could have ever imagined from the book.

To be honest, I felt quite cheated, especially with the lack of content in the ACCESS and EXCEL chapters. For example, the Learnkey ACCESS beginner tutorial (did I mention they were BEGINNER-level) taught me not only how to build databases utilizing the database wizard, but also how to build them "from scratch." At the beginning of the ACCESS chapter in the book, there's a little paragraph at the bottom of the page, which more or less states that since building databases from scratch can become quite complicated, the book would only concentrate on utilizing the database wizard. Oh goodie.

The "statement" went so far as to tell the reader that if he/she wanted to learn how to build databases from scratch, they should look into purchasing "ACCESS FOR DUMMIES"...by so-and-so. My first thought (besides oh goodie), was, "Why should I have to buy another book? Isn't learning how to do WHATEVER I needed to do, from scratch or otherwise, the reason why I bought THIS one?" My second thought was, "How kind of him to include a reference to soften the blow, which, by chance happens to be another "...DUMMIES" book. Surprise, surprise. I'll bet the "...DUMMIES" PTBs (powers-that-be) had a bit to do with that. I won't waste anymore of your time getting into detail as to why I had issues with the EXCEL chapter. It's all pretty much redundant anyway.

Given what "material" Mr. Wang did provide, the book is a comfortable and friendly read. A few of his little "blips" actually brought forth a smile (imagine that!). He also does a wonderful job of breaking down the information included in each chapter by establishing the main and subtopics very clearly, followed by bulleted paragraphs and brief definitions. His form of writing is down-to-early and flows very smoothly.

Also included are the numerous diagrams and "tips," "reminders," etc., clip arts I now know are typically seen in a "...FOR DUMMIES" publication. I even found myself thankful for the charts listing the shortcut keyboard strokes, which I happen to prefer using over the mouse.

I'll be objective for a moment longer by stating that maybe I brought my frustration on myself. With this being my first hands-on experience with the "...FOR DUMMIES" line of books, it's quite possible my expectations were a bit higher than they should have been. After all, the title does hint at what's to come.

HOWEVER, (ok...objective moment over), I truly do believe Mr. Wang could have included a lot more "bang for the buck," for not just ACCESS and EXCEL, but for ALL of the programs covered as the MS OFFICE SUITE. There are so many more procedures that, in my opinion, (I did say objective moment over, right?), are beyond basically easy and should have been part of the book.

So much so, as a matter of fact, that I'd be ready to dub this book, "Pre-Basic Study Guide for ...OFFICE...FOR DUMMIES." I also think...again, strictly my opinion, that in order for anyone to find this book useful, they'd have to be either VERY vaguely familiar with the SUITE of programs (meaning you've heard of them but that's about it), OR would have JUST learned how to operate a computer and now the next step is to learn some very useful business software and "the guy at the computer store" suggested OFFICE as the best place to start.

People, if you consider yourselves even somewhat of an advanced novice of the software, take a risk and buy a different book that will show you how to do whatEVER you need to from scratch, as well as by utilizing the wizards. Don't get me wrong, the wizards are a great tool to help make learning easier and creating, for lack of a better word, generic output, while you're still getting your bearings and understanding how "things" work.

HOWEVER (yes, again)...unless you don't have any need or reason to learn more than the very basics of the programs, the time will come (a lot sooner than you expect if this book was your first choice as a learning tool, )in which you'll need to move past the very basics and that's all this book is good for...the very basics.

The material is so remedial that it begs the question "If you have to be instructed to click on 'File -> Open' to open a new document/spreadsheet/database, what on earth are you possibly using MS Office 2000 for?" If you have to be instructed on fundamental basics, you probably don't have much use for the instructions on creating an ACCESS database. If your knowledge of e-mail, word processing, or other simple functions is limited, your time would be better served taking a general computer class or reading a different "basics" book that covers fundamental software knowledge - not one suite.

With the individual "Dummies" book for any of the applications, you're able to skip over the fundamental information and refresh your memory on more difficult tasks or expand your acquaintence to a working knowledge of the program. "Microsoft Office 2000 for Windows for Dummies" does not allow this freedom. They've attempted to write about a huge subject in 438 pages (sans index) and the authors fall short here of anything but a simplistic recant of fundamental skills and bland humor. For this reason, I give it 3 stars.

That said, if you do need to learn fundamental office skills, and are comfortable with the "Dummies" style, this is a nicely priced book with a great index. WONDERFUL index!!! Even I found the index useful for a couple of references I was looking for and didn't want to skim the entire section on "Storing 'STUFF' in ACCESS".

On the plus side the author has put in a great deal of effort and spends a lot of time making concepts and procedures understandable to the uninitiated and makes heavy use of buletted tips, tricks and summaries that make it easy to remember.

The strength of this book is in introducing those first time users to Office that have very little knowledge about what most would consider essential knowledge. I also don't think you will find anything useful if you are moving from Office 97 to Office 2000. This is more of an introduction to Office itself, rather than Office 2000.

If you are a complete beginner in any of the Office applications then I think this is a great book. This includes those of you who still feel intimidated by Microsoft Office, as well as people who might be experienced in Word but are just starting out with Excel or PowerPoint for example.

If you are anywhere past a beginner, such as a regular user, capable of most day to day tasks, then this book won't give you any more insight than you already have. You might find some pieces of information useful, such as shortcut keys and a lot of tips, but most of the book will go unused.

Well worth reading for anyone who loves the Northeast coastline - whether or not they have ever entered an unfamiliar harbor, short of food and fuel, just ahead of a storm.

I had some doubts THE PAPERBACK COVERS would be a good use of my money, since it sounded like it was just a grab-bag collection of cover scans that might or might not be very clean, but that wasn't what I got. It's actually basically a text listing of all the paperback covers RFM ever did, with pages showing selected groups of covers, plus background material and a number of full-page paintings.

The book's layout is clean, and so are the prints, though the cover copies are (necessarily) on the small side. However, the full-page prints are worth the price of admission. If you have to choose between TAPESTRY and PAPERBACK COVERS, I'd say pick up TAPESTRY hands-down, but if you have TAPESTRY then PAPERBACK COVERS makes a very nice accessory.