I enjoyed "Washington Square" thoroughly. I believe any highschool student should read this if they are looking for a "book" report. I found it captivating and I couldn't put the book down. However I was a little disappointed in how the ending turned out, but what can I do?

Everyone in the LDS Church is told to keep a diary for posterity, yet only a few people do. Henry Bigler did and his words about the march westward, the goldfields of California, and the treks eastward to Utah are some of the most prized words of the pioneers, mormon and non-mormon alike. He describes things how they were, not some romantic notion or dream. If only more people like H Bigler had written down a few chapters, we could have lived the moments through their words. Actually a few people have written their memoirs of the gold country, but Bigler's writings are readable and enjoyable. For another story about the West, it may pay the reader to find a copy of Alfred Doten's Journal. The sad part about that one is the posterity sought to remove some of the morally or politically 'incorrect' passages, and part of Doten's record was deliberately messed up or destroyed. But diaries and journals provide posterity with the truth about how things were, and the reader gains a glimpse and understanding about circumstnces that cannot be gained by any other means.

This is a tranquil, contemplative work of reflection on the varieties of nature. Like the amazing bird that changes its song regularly when one of its species, for reasons unkown, 'decides' to create a new melody which the others then follow. Another thing to look out for is the sensation that Hudson's glasses has on the local indigenous population - mocking laughter turns to incredulous amazement. This book brought peace to my life, and hopefully increased my sensitivity to natural wonders all around me - everyday ones as well as the extraordinary.

There are a lots pictures in the book, and explain theories very well. However, solutions for problems are not in this book, have to buy seperately.

This book on mazes and labyrinths by Matthews is one of a kind. It is one of the ONLY books that gives you such broad yet detailed information on such a fascinating subject. The book includes everything ranging from Egyption labyrinths to Hedge mazes.

If the Great War may be said to have produced anything (besides carnage and irresolution), it is certainly the inexhaustible spate of talented English authors that first comes to mind. Those that lived (Graves, Sassoon, Blunden) and those that didn't (Owen, Brooks, Thomas) left a literary legacy of war poetry and war prose that is still unsurpassed.
The nature-loving, writing-obsessed Henry Williamson is not often included along with his fellow soldier-scribblers and is, indeed, barely known outside of England. Despite a canon well over forty tomes, Williamson's work has drifted in and out-of-print in the United States. His majestic WET FLANDERS PLAIN, which chronicles his somber return to the former battlefields after a twelve-year absence, cost this author (dollar amount) used in paperback and much anticipation as it slowly arrived from somewhere in Australia. Most of his novels are missing-in-action from used bookshop across America and must be ordered from abroad.
Fortunately, THE PATRIOT'S PROGRESS is still available (well, sort-of) and perhaps not for long. Perhaps his best-known novel in America, PATRIOT'S tells the story of Private John Bullock and his progress from a boorish London office job to the battlefields of France. Enhanced by the marvelous Masereel-esque woodcuts of
William Kermode, the novel details in sparse verbiage the life of the men in the trenches. Although not as detail-oriented as Blunden or Graves, it is nonetheless of interest to both the reader of literature and the historian and has been taught in university courses on The Great War. Williamson is an extremely important writer whose works certainly deserve a wider audience.

Since the book dates back to the 1800's when first published, its historical value is prominent. It bridges the English sheriffs' roles and early American sheriffs' duties.

It is a little tough reading, since it seems to be written in some version of "old-english"; it is not like reading a foreign language by any means, but those who have a law-enforcement or legal background will have an easier time deciphering some terms (for example, "gaol" is used in the book, and corresponds to how we would currently spell the term: "jail").

A good resource for lawyers researching employment law issues relating to "at-will" employment of deputies--still alive and well in many parts of the country (especially the west)--civil service laws notwithstanding.

The book loses the 5th star-rating because of its readability difficulty; on the other hand, that is what makes it a great historical research document.

This is one of the best in the series! Access to some rare texts of Aristotle tempts Master William Falconer away from the petty intrigues of Oxford to Furness Abbey, near the shifting sands of Lancaster Bay. As usual, Falconer stumbles onto a twenty year old mystery that, to his dismay takes up his time that he feels could be more usefully spent reading Aristotle.

I enjoy mysteries that allow the reader to appreciate the history and culture of the times; and this mystery is rich in both. The mystery is intriguing and the description of the treacherous shifting sands and the remote abbey adds to the fearful atmosphere. A truly enjoyable read.

There's no place like Hippo for the holidays. Especially when it's the turn of the fifth century and you've gotten yourself over to the cathedral early enough to score a good spot for the bishop's Mass. I'm telling you, that guy can flat-out preach.

Fast-forward 16 centuries. Many familiar with St. Augustine know him from his greatest written works, The Confessions and The City of God. Both are bedrocks in the Western literary canon, fussed over by students not only of literature, but also of history, philosophy and theology. But how many of us, his fawning fans included, know what it was like to have your ears tickled by the very voice of Christendom's greatest genius?

William Griffin thinks he has a pretty good idea. And he does a fine and fun job of putting his insights across in these translations of Augustine's Christmas-season sermons.

This is Augustine like you've never read him. Glib, pointed, playful, colloquial, streetwise: He'll say whatever needs to be said to get you to let the facts of Christ's coming open your mind, penetrate your heart and change your life. And, true to form, for all his crafty rhetorical flourishes, he doesn't speak a word or even think a thought that can't be directly traced to Scripture. We already knew that about the bishop of Hippo, but we haven't seen it relayed in quite this way before.

"Let's recognize this day for what it is, my dear Brothers and Sisters," Griffin's Augustine says of Christmas. "Let's pretend we ourselves are the day! Yes, when we were living unfaithfully, we were the night. Indeed the slip-sliding in our faith had made the nights longer and colder till day itself was about to be snuffed. That's how it was on the day Our Lord Jesus Christ was born. The shortest day of the year. The Winter Solstice. From this point onward in human history, the nights grew shorter, the days longer." John 1:9, anyone?

Just as Augustine was a dexterous and innovative interpreter of the Word of God, ever intent on making the Bible accessible to the widest possible swath of humanity, so Griffin shows himself a witty and creative interpreter of the words of Augustine. In fact, so breezy is the sermonizing here that many turns of phrase beg the question: At what point does Augustine leave off and Griffin pick up?

The latter drops some helpful clues. The largest single section of Griffin's informative and entertaining foreword is an apologia for his use of the paraphrasal method of translation, rather than the literal, in turning ancient Latin into contemporary English. It's an approach that allows him to present Augustine as he might sound were he alive today.

Naturally, it also permits plenty of leeway for artistic indulgence. "Neither [men nor women] should give the Creator the finger," Griffin has the saint saying, "for that horrible trick he played on them in the Garden."

The bishop of Hippo may well have been similarly jarring in person. But would he have used so low-brow an expression -- in a homily? I'm not sure, but I'm giving Griffin a pass on that passage and several others in the same vein because, on the whole, Augustine in this brusque, thoroughly modern voice is so arresting and thought-provoking. There are worse ways to get good theology. And I've seen no better way to absorb Augustine for Advent.

"The angel delivered the message," we read. "Kindly the Virgin listened to it. Against her better judgment she believed it. The conception took place. Faith in her soul. Christ in her womb. And that's all there was to it. ... What storyteller -- the great Isaiah included -- could do Justice to a birth like that?"

If Augustine wasn't up to the job, neither is William Griffin. But what a joy their combined efforts are to read -- make that hear -- as Christmastide comes each year.

David Pearson is features editor of the National Catholic Register.

The best book I ever rea