I read Vanity Fair a few months ago and loved it, so I thought I'd give something else of Thackeray's a try (even though I had never heard of The History of Henry Esmond) and I'm so glad I did. It's slightly slow going at first, but once the second Viscount Castlewood and his family take possession of the estate and provide Henry with his first real home, it becomes deeply involving. With every page, the Castlewood family becomes more and more complex. Some relationships are strengthened and some are slowly destroyed in such subtle ways that when catastrophe comes, it seems inevitable, and at the same time, surprising. Through it all, we have Henry's narration (although he speaks of himself in the third person), which casts a melancholy and lonely tone over all the events. A beautiful book.

I believe that penchant for the moralistic (and add here more than a snipett of post-modern political corectness)from English-speaking readers has slighted judgements about this novel, which is a novel about people with sloppy morals in a time of sloppy political intrigue and sloppy moral standards offering a contrast with the philistine ambience of Thackeray's own age. I found the novel simply _lush_, and think that Hollywood has in it a treat in store for any filmmaker of genius who wants to emulate Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Get ahold of a copy and enjoy!

Although for some reason forgotten by the US public, "The History of Henry Esmond" is one of the finest books ever written in English language. May be it has lost its luster because it offers no excess of blood-spilling and sexual adventures, but instead finds its way to describe the deepest and most vulnerable chambers of the human heart. I have read a handful of books, be it in English, French, German or Russian, that described the human strengths and weaknesses while tying them to a character one can relate to with such skill. People who do not like it, it seems, are just shamed by the morals offered in such a book, and are quick to forget it. I read "Henry Esmond" when I was a young boy, and now, half a century later, it hasn't lost a beat.

Unfortunately, this Yale edition leaves out about half of what Newman himself published in 1873 as the definitive edition of THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY. Published here are only the nine "Dublin Discourses" from Part I on "University Teaching" and but four of the ten chapters of Part II, "University Subjects Discussed in Occasional Lectures and Essays." For the hundred-page displacement of Newman's essays, the editor substitutes five interpretive essays supposedly inquiring into the relevance of Newman's book for today's higher education debates. These interpretive essays have major inconsistencies and repetitions among themselves and are of mixed quality, with inaccuracies and serious misunderstandings of some of Newman's central ideas. As accurate forays of the Newmanian mind into the twentieth- and twenty-first century university, only the engaging and intellectually challenging essays by George Marsden and George Landow succeed. (COMPLETE paperback editions of Newman's IDEA are available from Loyola University Press, 1987, and University of Notre Dame Press, 1982).

A wonderful work, too bad that this edition by Regnery is chock full of glaring typographical errors. Detracts from Newman's otherwise brilliant prose.

Newman's work is not only an eloquent, erudite, and careful defense of the virtue of knowledge and the value of a liberal education; it is also a brilliantly reasoned and felt argument for the prevention of hubris on the part of any particular branch of knowledge.

Newman's sound warnings against the overreaching of scientific fields and the triumph of smug materialism and positivism are still urgent, of course. Newman is also careful to point out that the liberal arts and even theology may attempt to establish a single, inadequate framework for the discovery of truth.

Newman's complex epistemology does not fall prey to the heresy that truth is not one, but reminds us that in our present state, truth present various aspects and that the tyranny of any particular branch of knowledge is the victory of ignorance.

This book (which I have not read) is purported on this webiste and elsewhere to be a collaborative effort between Dumas and Williams or at least a Williams adaptation of a Dumas play. It is actually believed by many others to be the sole work of Williams and of inferior quality to anything penned by Dumas.

A must read for any book fan worth his salt... a masterful book.... I loved it tremndously......
The story is about , as most of you will know , D'Artagnan , who comes from the district of Gascon to the city to become a musketeer and his adventures with the new friends he makes from the King's musketeers.......

I recommend this book to everyone......

Concise collection of texts treating all aspects of Renewable Energy in a grown up manner. Valuable as a starter's information source but also for experts.

Concise collection of texts treating all aspects of Renewable Energy in a grown up manner. Valuable as a starter's information source but also for experts. Covers all the aspects of renewable energy sources and many ways to transform one form of energy to another. Spans from biomass, biogas, solar collectors, solar cells to fuel cell cogeneration.

If you will read 'The Slave Narratives' you will get to read interviews with over 2500 former slaves who were still living in the mid-thirties, and also their views and feelings about life in the old South. Why limit yourself to just a handpicked 6 stories when there are 2500 out there? Hmmm?

Six Women's Slave Narritives is an absolute must for any historian or seeker of truth. You will cry and shivers will run down your spine as you feel the past rush through you with every turn of the page. This is a compilation of 19th century Black women writers in different situations. Interestingly, the typeface changes slightly throughout the book, imitating the possibility of time travel. Some of the women are educated, and some are simply expressive. The editors notes help clarify confusing issues and questions. If you are studying history, women, black history or slavery, you will be engrossed by this heartrenching and soul-moving collection of personal exposure. Be ready to cry, wince, and change your outlook on life.

Only a few pages of the 4th edition are new so if you have the 3rd don't bother with the 4th. The publisher should be ashamed.

Chafe does a good job on selected topics;i.e., politics, civil rights and foreign policy. Weak on economics, technology, farm policy. Heavily dependent on some secondary sources like Doris Kearns Goodwin. Needs updating badly. 4th edition has been delayed for months.

The Disappearing Duke definitely falls into the "truth is stranger than fiction" category. The fifth Duke of Portland, head of an immensely powerful and rich British family apparently lived a double and perhaps triple life,leading to the most scandalous case of infighting among ostensible heirs and court case of the early 20th century in Britain.As Duke of Portland, he led a reclusive life occupied by extensive building on the estate. As his alter ego,Thomas Druce,he married twice and produced two separate families.The fighting between the groups led to madness and financial ruin for several of the family members.
This is a fascinating story,but I found the novelistic approach to the material a bit diconcerting.There was much dialogue that was apparently not supported by any sources other than the authors' imagination. That being said, it was entertaining and at least an accurate representation of the power possessed by the British aristocracy of the time.

AN EYE FOR THE COAST: THE MARITIME AND MONHEGAN ISLAND PHOTOGRAPHS OF ERIC HUDSON is a work (and a labor of love by its editors)which will be primarily of interest to specialists, including those interested in small ship design and in the history of maritime New England at the turn of the century. The books consists of roughly 100 glass-plate photographs of boats, fisherfolk and shoreline scenes taken along the Massachusetts Coast and on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine between l890 and l920. Clearly, Hudson intended to create a photographic record in his plates, and for the most part, that's what the viewer gets. While much of the subject matter is interesting and informative (the extended, businesslike captions are well done), only a few of the pictures have a significant artistic quotient. Unfortunately, the quality of the reproductions in this book is not very good, and many of the images are grey, washed out or lacking in contrast. This may be attributable in part to the poor condition of the original plates and also to the failure of the publisher to use a coated stock. For an example of a similar work with much better photographs and superb reproductions, see A PACIFIC LEGACY: A CENTURY OF MARITIME PHOTOGRAPHY 1850-1950 published in l991. Although they are represented in a number of museum collections, I am not familiar with Hudson's paintings. However, one example reproduced in color on the back cover of AN EYE FOR THE COAST suggests that he may have been a far better painter than he was a photographer. For another review of this book with a different perspective, see page 58 of the January, l999 issue of ANTIQUES Magazine.

THE FALCONER AND THE FACE OF GOD is a quick read, and a good paperback to carry in a suitcase for reading while you wait -- if your eyes can take the teeney type. I'm pretty nearsighted so I had no problem reading the text, but it might be difficult to see without an itty-bitty book light. Undoubtedly, the hardcover has larger type but it will weigh more, and this is the kind of book I like to take along on a trip and toss out after I read it.

Ian Morson is in the process claiming a "series space" between Cadfael (Ellis Peters, mid-1100's, Shrewsbury) and Archer (Candace Robb, mid-1300's, York). His writing is adequate. His plot is reasonable and his character development sparse. His attention to detail is ample given the brevity of this text.

Morson's protagonist is Falconer is a regent at Oxford in the mid-1200s, during the latter days of the incredibly long reign of Henry III, the great-grandson of Matilda and father of Edward the hammer who conquered Scotland. The Falconer solves crimes in the little city of Oxford. He has been described as a Middle-Ages Morse on the book jacket but he's not that good--yet.

In FALCONER AND THE FACE OF GOD, a troupe of jongleurs not unlike the crew that stages the play in Hamlet arrives in Oxford in time to present a Christmas play covering everything from Creation to the death of Christ. Given the leading actor, a golden-haired fellow named de Askeles, is a despicable if semi-educated cur, fatal things are bound to happen and they do. Before long, the Falconer finds himself involved with two mysterious deaths which he solves just in time for the New Year.

On the first page of the book you hit the statement that Jackie was "the laziest man alive." For me, that statement sets the tone. A quick look at the picture of the author will show he doesn't know much about excercise himself. I found it laughable that one of the big gripes William makes about Gleason was he proported musical talent was his that belonged to others, when whole paragraphs from the previous two biographies mysteriously found themselves into this book, word for word at times. Whereas the first two books were written by friends of Jackie's, William never had even a personal conversation with him, and spoke to NONE of the family. While he did speak to coworkers, I got the feeling from the beginning that he had set out to write a "Jackie is a smuck" book, and filtered everything accordingly. Within the first few chapters, I lost count of the number of factual errors that I found. Mae's mother had 11 children, not 5. They never actually lived in Ireland. Jackie's darkness didn't come from some ancestral Spainard sunk of the coast of Ireland, but from a maternal Great-Grandfather from Portugal. Herb, the father, was not a decade older than his wife, but three years. These were all easily researched items and were wrong. This cast a long shadow of suspicion over the rest of the book which consists of people's accounts of things long past. We all know how memories can be. The bookcover said the author treated shortcomings with compassion, but I found it closer to intense condemnation, such as with the statement, "the laziest man alive" because Jackie didn't walk 12 blocks in New York. Have to wonder if the author would have hoofed it, or hailed a cab. There may be some facts buried in the pile of misinformation and bad feeling, but it may be hard to find, or to identify. For me, I see Jackie's ever changing stories as a way for him to keep the truth private and just for himself. I certainly hope no one out there really believes that Tom Cruise is telling us the truth about his life, or Julia Roberts. Just because they do something, doesn't mean we deserve the intimate details of theirs lives. And just because Jackie wasn't upfront about his, doesn't change that mystical magic that happens when people watch the Honeymooners. He wasn't perfect, few of us are, but he gave us smiles we didn't have before. His life was sad and hard, but to be so spiteful and mean about it makes William's life even sadder. Imagine implying Jackie shouldn't feel upset because his mother died when he was a "man of nineteen" instead of boy of sixteen. I can't imagine having lost both parents by nineteen and to only have one cousin at my wedding for family. This book will only give you what you want if you already know that it has been written by someone who looked for the bad and down played the good, or quite possibly, simply didn't include those accounts. The book wasn't that interesting, and I certainly could put it down. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.

As far as I know, this is the only biography written by someone who was not a friend of Gleason's, and it shows. While the book is well-researched, the author takes an inordinate amount of pleasure in pointing out as many of Gleason's faults as he can. I was left with the impression that the author was jealous that Gleason enjoyed such enormous success despite not always being a pleasant person.

Audrey Meadows commented at the end of her book "Love, Alice" that the author skewered Gleason for not living up to his (the author's) standards, and that sounds about right. To pay Meadows back for this, the author tries to discredit her story about how she won the role of Alice on "The Honeymooners," but only ends up looking vindictive again, as Meadows has published the photos taken of herself auditioning for Alice that prove her story true. This is only one of several instances where Henry tries to attack people who try to disagree with his negative view of Gleason.

There are many instances in the book of phrases like "Gleason said..." or "Gleason often commented..." but very few of these quotes are backed up with any kind of source in the text itself, and there are no endnotes in the book. In addition, many other people quoted in the book are identified only as "colleagues," with no one specific being cited as the source(s) of many of the stories about how horrible Gleason really was.

I noted the comments from various celebrities on the back of the dust jacket, and was surprised to hear praise from people who call themselves Gleason's friends. It makes you wonder just what kinds of friends they were.

What Mr Henry reveals in this biography is the true ugliness of Jackie Gleason. Yes, he was an outstanding performer. Yes, he was loyal to his "pals". Yes, he worked his way up from nothing to become something. But what, exactly, did Gleason become? "The Great One", a title he bestowed upon himself? Or a miserable, bitter drunk, who twisted and controlled everything and everyone around him just to project the image of a genius?

I believe every word of William Henry's excellent book, even though Jackie fans most certainly do not. I believe it because Mr Henry went to the sources--he interviewed Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, Jane Meadows and Joyce Randolph; he interviewed The Great One's directors, producers, castmates and writers (the people that truly made him great)--and they all agree to a universal conclusion, even when they try to be kind: Jackie Gleason was a crude, cruel, manipulative man, even beyond what you may expect. Read this book and prepare to be shocked.