This collection contains at least a sampling of virtually every text available regarding the medieval Normans. I used it inn a classroom at university this spring to wonderful reviews from advanced-level undergraduates. This author is perhaps THE best person working in the field of medieval Normandy today, no one is better qualified to put a sourcebook like this together! Thanks to Elisabeth Van Houts for this marvelous read and marvelous tool!

This book is a very good preparation for Access 2000 Core. However, as of May 2002, many of the questions on the Access 2002 "Core" test were actually from the "Expert" objectives which were not published on the Web MOUS site. Fortunately, the Microsoft Access 2002 MOUS Expert book by Winters and Manchester does an excellent job preparing readers for the Core test and it covers all of the Expert objectives.

The book I am reviewing is F. Mandl's "Quantum Mechanics", from the celebrated Manchester Physics Series. These are books especially planned for undergraduates, so that they are not too long and have hints or solutions to almost all the (numerous) exercises. The author is a famous writer in science. He wrote, for instance, the first redable book on quantum electrodynamics (the "Mandl", as it was called), another volume of the Manchester Series, "Statistical Physics", one of the present favorite introductions to the same subject (with G. Shaw) and a wonderful Yellow Report from CERN on Symmetries, now unfortunately very hard to find. Mandl has the gift of anticipating doubts and of providing clear and direct answers. In a book of quantum mechanics there are traditional points where disasters frequently occur. One is the description of the continuous spectra, with the "box normalization". Mandl excells here. Other is the perturbatio! n theory of a degenerate level. Mandl's is the best treatment I've seen. As is usual in texts of this level, there is no Dirac equation. On the other hand, a chapter is devoted to Dirac's formalism, in terms of bras and kets. At the modern side, a very clear explanation of Bell's inequality, and problems connected to it, is given. To sum up, the whole text is sound and very clear. The exercise are good, and the hints most helpful. Excellent text.

i absolutely am in love with this incredible book. buy it if you have the money. now.

Sadly now out of print, 'Two wheel Trek' is the story of one man, a bike and open road between Manchester and Cape Town. Despite warnings that he was being over-ambitious ('You'll never make it past the pub') Neil Clough took to the route, traveling across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Nubian desert, Lake Victoria and Zimbabwe (or Rhodesia as it was then called). Throwing caution to the wind he travels through two war zones (Lebananon and Rhodesia) and worries about falling victim to theft in Turkey, whereby he constructs a Heath Robinson alarm system. Endlessly facinating, with stories of all Neil's adventures, this book makes perfect reading for those of us who would love to do such a thing but are just too scared (and rightly so). The best part of the book for me was when Neil Clough traveled through the Sudanese Nubian desert. Because it was so sandy (being a desert) Clough conveniently located a virtually disused railroad along which he pushed the bike in the night, to avoid the heat of the African sun. Every so often he would come across rail supervisor's huts outside which there were a variety of pots and pans. Neil describes stopping at each one of these and rearranging the items in artistic displays and imagining what the people inside would think when they woke up to see it. It is very funny and full of similar anecdotes and interesting facts that you never knew. I only hope you manage to get hold of a copy, despite its being out of print, because it is well worth it.

Ever wondered why the Catholic Church behaves the way it does? This History is a well written, entertaining,enlightened answer by one of the Church's cognoscenti. Yes, it is a history of the Catholic Church in New Hampshire, but it is more than a history. It is an engaging detective story that reveals the answer to why the Church did that or this. Moreover,it outlines a text book case of how not to run a railroad, or a church for that matter. I like the work well enough to buy five or six copies for the benifit of my more thoughtful friends.

We have heavyweight authors such as William Manchester, Stephen Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegan, and others write essays covering all aspects of World War II in this heavyweight volume of 688 pages. The essays are fairly short so you can put the book down and come back to it later without feeling you have to pick up where you left off. From familiar stories such as the invasion of Normandy to an interesting story on Germany's Black Knight, Field Marshal von Rundstedt and another on General Curtis LeMay will provide you, the reader, with additional information whatever your background on World War II. As mentioned, the book is long, but the essays enable you to break the book up into managable parts so you are able to pioneer your way through it successfully. Don't be intimidated by the length. It is worth the time to wade through it.

This book is an excellent companion piece to any conventional history of the Second World War. This compilation of essays represents a "best of the best" of previously published articles from the magazine MHQ, and each provides unique "color" commentary on snap-shot events of the war, some well-known,
some not. Obviously, some of the contributions are better than others, but there are none that I didn't enjoy reading.

The more noteworthy ones include novelist Caleb Carr's look at Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland. The author of two works in the book (the second is a look at the "Black Knight"-Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt; an interesting piece marred by poorly substantiated and thus unfair criticism of Gen. Eisenhower's strategy in 1944-45), Carr makes a good case in his first essay that the conduct of the often forgotten Polish campaign which started the war is worthy of a lot more study and attention than it has generally received. Similarly, David Glantz gives us a good look at Operation Mars, the gigantic offensive designed to push the Germans away from Moscow in 1942. The offensive was a colossal failure but Soviet suppression and the victory at Stalingrad allowed this battle to be shrouded in obscurity for most of postwar history. David Shears provides two interesting looks at the possibilities surrounding Operation Sea Lion, Germany's half-hearted (and ultimately junked) plan for invading England. In this same theme, "The Turning Points of Tarawa" by Joseph H. Alexander gives a startling reassessment of the bloody battle for Tarawa, from predominantly a Japanese point of view.

For stories from the Home Front, Theodore F. Cooke Jr. gives readers a very illuminating look at Japanese reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor in "Tokyo, December 8, 1941," while George Feifer's "The Last Picture Show" gives an account of Joesph Goebbels' bizarre film project in the dying days of the Third Reich to rally German morale to face the final cataclysm.

Interesting "I Was There" pieces include "The Day the Hornet Sank", a memoir by a nineteen year old petty officer "Airedale," and "A Kamikaze's Tale," the first account published in the West by a surviving Kamikaze flier.

Worthwhile assessments of wartime leadership include Alistair Horne's "In Defense of Montgomery", an apology for the often disparaged British field marshal by an historian worthy (if name-recognition wasn't such a marketing factor) of front-cover billing, but unfortunately he's trumped by the overrated William Manchester (who does have a good, if somewhat disjointed account of the Battle of Britain in this book), as well as the ubiquitous Stephen Ambrose. While I did not agree with many of Horne's conclusions--I would say that von Rundstedt's description of Rommel also fit's Rommel's nemesis Monty: "a brave man, and a very capable commander, but not really qualified for high command" (besides, Monty was a pompous [jerk], a point Horne willingly concedes)--this essay is still highly recommended reading. I was more sympathetic to Victor Davis Hanson's rehabilitation of the legacy of Curtis LeMay (America's version of the RAF's "Bomber Harris") in "The Right Man." While he's been an object of left-wing ridicule beginning primarily in the 1960s, a frank, contextual appraisal of LeMay's wartime (and postwar, too) accomplishments indicates that he's worthy of recognition as one of our great wartime commanders (and deserves credit as the architect of the strategic force crucial to democracy's victory in the Cold War). Read this piece together with Williamson Murray's "Did Strategic Bombing Work?", an excellent rebuttal to the often repeated assertion that the Allied bombing campaign against Germany was not only ineffective but patently immoral.

Finally, Eliot A. Cohen's "Churchill and his Generals" is not only an excellent study of the British Prime Minister exercising wartime leadership, it's also an important reminder to Americans of the inseparable linkage between politics and war. Our traditional desire to separate those two considerations has arguably led to outcomes that fell well short of expectations following many of America's wars.

All in all, this book should be considered an essential addition to any World War II library.

What a wonderful gift editor Robert Crowley has given us with this treasure trove of individual essays from individual contributors in this spellbinding book covering a number of different aspects and experiences during World War Two! As one of the authors, the late popular historian Stephan Ambrose has shown us with many of his own works, the history of the Second World War was such a massive and variegated plethora of anecdotes, campaigns and experiences that it is nearly impossible to exhaust the steady stream of captivating stories that spring from its loins like bouncing babies, fully formed, into the waiting reader's lap. This is a particularly attractive package of essays, perfect for people who want something relatively short, as each individual offering within is, something one can read on a plane flight in its entirety and then pick up later without trying to remember the context or story thread where he had left off. And each of the stories makes for fascinating reading indeed.

The list of authors included is both impressive and eclectic, ranging from Ambrose, who weighs in with the taut and stirring tale of a platoon of paratroopers attempting to take and control a bridge key to the initial thrust of the first few hours of the Normandy landing, to Caleb Carr, better known for his success as a novelist ("The Alienist") but quite an eminent historian as well, to William Manchester to John Keegan to Antony Beever to Stanley Weintraub to David M. Glantz. And this is only some of the luminary historically prominent authors gathered together in what can only be described as a bravura collection of stories and perspectives on the total war effort, ranging in topics from the island hopping effort in the South Pacific to the desperate hours of the first few hours leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in the French Ardennes in December of 1944.

Despite my own wide reading of similar historical sources over the last thirty years, I found several of the articles quite illuminating and educational, as with Caleb Car's treatment of life on the ground as the invasion of Poland proceeds in September, 1939 in the precipitating event that quickly served to trigger the advent of the Second World War as such. Similarly, articles by Charles Berges, Sir David Fraser, and Carlo D'Este proved both fascinating and edifying in illuminating aspects of the war only poorly understood and studied in the existing literature.

This monograph especailly serves the interested private scholars like me who wants to know more about various different aspects and perspectives of the war that are not adequately or fully treated elsewhere, and used in conjunction with marvelous other resources such as Gerhard Weinberg's masterful "A World At Arms", Richard Spector's terrific ""Eagle Against The Sun", and William Shirer's eye-witness testimony in "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich", gives us a much richer and more comprehensive understanding of the signal historical event of the 20th century. Enjoy!

Vurt, by Jeff Noon, is one of the greatest cyberpunk novels I have read. We are set on a journey to find Scribble's long lost sister Desdemona through a world of colorful drug feathers. These feathers are stuck in the back of the throat in order to induce a sort of hallucination or virtual reality, or "Vurt." Blue feathers induce the feelings and emotions of nice sweet dreams, black feathers show the person both love and pain, and yellows are something practically no one can find. The yellow feather is the most dangerous and deadly drug feather, a person may not come out of it alive. First the reader is led into a world of Vurt-You-Want stores and a dark, drug-addicted society. Society has been addicted to the feathers for some time now in the novel, while some characters are trying to get the same feelings they got from the feathers from things more herbal, like some of the drugs we have around today. We are surrounded by serious characters with goofy names like Beetle, Twinkle, and The Thing-from-Outer-Space. While the characters may have unusual names, they bring Vurt to life with each of their own unique personalities. Beetle is the group leader and has a strong, and rather mean personality, which makes it easy for him to keep the Stash Riders in order. Twinkle started off as the youngest Stash Rider and has shown her dedication to the group. The Thing-from-Outer Space is an actual alien that was from a yellow Vurt feather. The Stash Riders are like the groups of kids in the short story "Cyberpunk" by Bruce Bethke, because they all are rebelling in one-way or another. The characters in both short story and novel don't want to conform to society. As I read I kept wanting more, and Noon gave more. The novel kept me so intrigued that I had a hard time putting it down. My mind was on a constant imagination trip while reading this wonderful book.

In this, his first book, Jeff Noon has created an original futuristic world which is at times familiar yet sometimes strange. The atmosphere he creates is dark, moody, unusual, seedy, the underbelly of society, yet is somehow exciting, seductive, heroic and visionary.

The book introduces a lingo of the future which makes the first chapter or so a little unfamiliar, however, one soon picks it up and understands the meaning, and the language itself is a part of the experience of this book. Many parallels in the book are created such as drugs and feathers etc which lend it a certain familiarity. When first published it was a very original work, but I can't help but feel that subsequent films have borrowed ideas from this book, such as the Matrix.

A rollercoaster ride which twists and turns all the way to it's conclusion. I think Jeff Noon must have done curious yellow to have thought up this book! An exciting original read hence 5 stars.

"A young boy puts a feather into his mouth..."

From the first sentence of the book, I was drawn in. I forced myself to read only one chapter at a time, to actually consider what I'd read and let it sink in, and that made this book that much richer. To me, it heralded back to Clockwork Orange. The Stash Riders (made up of Scribble, Beetle, Mandy, and Bridget) have their own vocabulary grown from the world they inhabit - where feathers can hold their fondest dreams or worst nightmares, where the worst poison comes from dreamsnakes, where pure is poor, and where shadowcops lurk above every all-night Vurt-U-Want.

Scribble is a young man, not so out of the ordinary, who wants nothing more than to have his sister back again. That want drives him to a destiny he'd not even considered, gaining and losing almost everything in the process.

I'm enamoured with this book. It stays on my nightstand so I can hear Scribble tell his story whenever I want. Let Jeff Noon take you into his tangibly ethereal world.

This is one of those books I read on a whim, and I'm very glad that I did. The character of Kate Brannigan has become one of my favorite private eyes (Philip Marlowe is still my number one) over the few days it took me to finish the story. Kate is perky, polite with words but pleasantly cynical in thought. Her workout of choice is kickboxing, but Ms. McDermid doesn't turn it into an over-the-top [method] of destruction while encountering no-goodnicks in puruit of her cases. She has a [carefree] rock journalist boyfriend who enjoys smoking [illegal substances], and their greatest bond seems to be the perpetual quest for palatable Chinese food.

This is the first work I have read by V.L. McDermid, and I absolutely love her story telling, characters and use of dialogue from start to finish. The spark of the novel is an odd case of disappearing and/or phantom conservatories; a bland subject to start with, but blends into a fascinating tale of low profile [con] artists. Detective Brannigan is close friends with a lesbian couple, and I love how Ms. McDermid introduces them as one would introduce any loving couple, without trying to make contrived statements regarding alternative lifestyles.

The only thing that keeps me from delivering that final fifth star is the proofreading. There are enough typos and errors in this edition that it really started to make a great story look, at times, amateurish on paper. I rarely make an issue when I see a typo here and there, but the frequency of mistakes here was distracting.

Do not let that criticism stop you from picking up this book. The pace, characters and plot twists keep this story slick! I plan to read every Kate Brannigan caper in existence.

It's too bad Val McDermid's mysteries are so difficult to find in the U.S., because she's a terrific writer, and Kate Brannigan is a terrific private eye. "Kick Back" is the first of the Brannigan series and can be addictive. Based in the county of Cheshire in England (near Manchester), the very cool Kate encounters all manner of English dirty dealing and bad Chinese food. Every time I go to London, I pick up whatever new Val McDermid paperbacks are available, with Kate the first priority.

In Kate Brannigan's second novel she is investigating (as Kate puts it) the mystery of the missing conservatories. She is working for a contractor who is being pressure by the bank to pay off his loan because the bank suspects him to be involved in a fraud. He has made his payments on time and has not had any previous problem with the law, however when he does his own investigation he notices that the conservatories (greenhouses) he has put up have just vanished.

Kate's friend, Alexis, also has a problem. She has been conned out of 5,000 pounds from a real estate scheme and she wants Kate's help. What makes this a bit unique is that the two cases are somewhat related to each other as the story moves along. The story is full of twists and turns and a lot of action. I am sorry this was a quick read but I just love her work.

Kate is a firecracker. She is ready to go at bat for her friends and does not like to leave any stone unturned. She is resourceful and she knows how to kick butt when the time comes. If you want to get on her good side, you do not serve her substandard Chinese food. You might regret it.

McDermid knows how to tell a good story and it is great to know that her earlier novels are just as good as her most recent work. I highly recommend A PLACE OF EXECUTION if you still have not read it. It is her best book up to now bar none.

For her second novel, another mystery/drama, Nancy Geary has returned to the arena of family problems, this time set in a bastion of New England affluence, beautiful Manchester-by-the-Sea, where the family has a home filled with comfort and luxuries. Frances Pratt has spent many happy summers with her aunt's family, enjoying the good life, where the beautiful people are never too rich too thin, or, in this case, too dead. At this level of society, self-protection is second nature, silently closing ranks against any threat to the projection of the successful American Dream. When Frances is invited to her cousin's wedding, she has no idea what drama awaits them all. A former prosecutor now working as an advocate for abused women, Frances is more than ready for a short vacation, as well as the opportunity to reunite with relatives she hasn't seen for years.

Cousin Hope is marrying her longtime sweetheart, Jack Cabot. They are beautiful together, Ken and Barbie come to life. Each detail of the wedding and reception has been planned to perfection, sparing no expense. So Frances is shocked when her cousin, Hope, confides her terrible anxiety before the wedding, agonizing over her imagined unworthiness as Jack's bride. To further complicate the issue, Jack's parents are pressuring the couple to sign a prenuptial agreement, as he is the sole heir to the family fortune. For their part, Hope's parents have sunk the last of their money into the wedding, all to preserve the image that they belong in this rarefied society.

Finally the wedding party has gathered in the church, excitedly watching for the bride to step down the aisle. But such concerns seem trivial when the announcement is made that a relative has died suddenly. The wedding will not take place after all. The guests struggle to make the transition from celebrant to mourner, stunned and grieving.

Frances is asked to help her family through the immediate crisis, but after the police infer that it might have been a homicide, Frances offers her expertise in criminal justice, also at her aunt's request. Acting as an unofficial party, Frances supplies important background information to the detectives assigned to the case. In the course of her involvement, Frances uncovers some unsettling truths that shatter her image of this perfect family, ugly secrets that have undermined and poisoned family relationships. They have all been living in denial, unwilling to discuss or acknowledge the events.

Unfortunately, as Frances learns on this holiday-become-nightmare, family dysfunction runs throughout the family, a strange brew of passion and betrayal. In an engaging style, Geary exposes the secrets of the privileged class, the fatal flaws that have led to the family's disintegration, swept behind the priceless antiques and faded chintz furniture. In spite of the ocean shimmering like a jewel on the horizon and the magic of a Cinderella wedding, Frances' relatives are tormented by their own personal demons, anesthetizing their feelings to protect a false image. Luan Gaines/2003.

Respectfully, I wish to disagree with Harriet Klausner. This is not a cozy mystery. It is a thoughtful mystery by a thoughtful writer who is the Anne Perry of the contemporary eastern old money establishment, a chronicler of the mores and social rules that bind this elite community of the privileged. It is well written and well plotted. It is sedate, which is a perfect match for the environment in which the murder and its resolution occur.

I read Nancy Geary's first novel (*Misfortune*) after friends from the Hamptons (Long Island, where it's set) told me about it. It was great and I've been waiting for this one. *Redemption* is even better, with a clever story, a whodunnit, evocative descriptions of another romantic location, and more of the complex characters Geary creates so well -- children of privilege who are damaged and attractive at the same time.

I REALLY loved it, stayed up late to get the answer, and recommend it as a fun-to-read page turner with characters you'll remember for a long time. Five stars!!!!!