A boring, slapdash approach to what appears to be a much ado about nothing "mystery." Colin Wilson handled the subject much more briefly, effectively (and deceptively) in his "The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries." It's worth noting that the Wilson chapter is based on the Gray book!

Afflecj Grey does an excellent job of collecting all of the press reports and eyewitnesses of the elusive "Am Fear Liath More" of Ben MacDhui in the Scottish Grampian Highlands. The book is well documented and fascinating and puts forth some theories as to what may be at the root of the Grey Man phenomenon. Affelck Grey doesn not try to force anything on the reader but allows the reader to form his or her own opinion as to the matter. he is also not overly gullible and has no qualms about poking fun at himself as he does in several personal anecdotes. The main faults of the book are a fairly dull literary style, which makes the book slow reading as well as a large number of Scotttish terms whihc makes it hard for non-Scots to follow. But on the whole, an excellent book. This short (146 pp.) little book was used by Colin Wilson in his "Unsolved Mysteries" collection.

I was excited when I first picked up New Worlds, Lost Worlds, looking forward to reading about the Tudors, a dynasty I knew something but not a lot about. However, two pages into the author's prologue I began to have doubts. Brigdon provides a recitation of what her book is *not* about, without ever really telling us what the book *is* about - almost as if she is unsure herself. And the book itself seems aimless, endlessly wallowing in topics then meandering onto something else.

Brigdon's choices about what information to impart is also less than satisfying. For example, the book opens with Henry VII landing in South Wales. We are given precious little of Henry's background, however - pretty much nothing more than that he was born in Pembroke in 1457 and hid there thirteen years later. Nothing about what shaped him in exile, how he marshalled support for his return, what had brought Richard III to deposition. Instead, we are given a long-winded expose of the land Henry marched through on his way to Bosworth Field. Such is typical of the book, with such long meanderings that the reader feels as if he is wading through waist-high water, able to see the shore but unable to reach it. Far from being "vivid and stylish," as one reviewer has described it, Brigdon's prose seems all fluff and no substance.

This is a superb history book, sometimes wonderful. The Tudors are one of the most deeply-researched and pored-over dynasties in English history, and it is easy to think we know the story and the actors all too well. Yet this book, written, as Brigden says, "with awe and excitement", is alight with enthusiasm, curiousity and passion on every page.

The things I liked especially included: the author's vivid and stylish prose, so far from the bland puddings of most history textbook; her ability to tell a great story, so that for once you are genuinely curious to turn the page and find out what happened; and the way the book is driven forward by the interlocking forces of politics and religion. History here is no grand impersonal scheme, nor is the 16th century either 'the start of the modern era' or 'the high road to the civil war' - but a tale of complexity and chance. It would all have ended very differently if Mary had a baby.

Some things I liked less, though...

1. Ireland, so fashionable in British historiography at the moment, is given a lot of space, perhaps disproportionately. Brigden is clearly not an Ireland expert, and these sections are some of the weakest. They lack the deep reading in primary texts that so colours the rest of the book, and to someone ignorant of Irish history I suspect this book will still leave them thinking it was all a blur of O'Neills and Kildares. Brigden also doesn't really connect the story either - she never convincingly argues that Ireland influenced English affairs, I think.

2. The absence of Wales. This a sad loss, since the Tudors had far more impact on Wales than perhaps any other dynasty, even forgetting their Welsh precedents. Henry VIII's acts of 1536 centralised and united Wales for the first time since Glendower, and far more decisively, while the Welsh Reformation is probably THE decisive event in Welsh history - an event that preserved the Welsh language and laid the basis for Welsh literacy. None of this is in Brigden's story.

3. Economic history is almost totally ignored - which is fine so far as it goes (who wants to read about agricultural prices anyway?), but leads to a perhaps more grievous omission: there is almost nothing here about the urban classes, rising in wealth and numbers, who did much to shape the religion and intellectual history of this period.

4. Some chapters are quite weak: I suspect where Brigden is either really out of her speciality, or just knows too much. "Family and Friends" reads like an edited version of a much longer piece, with all the bones and examples taken out, making it dry and dull. The chapter on the 'Governors and the Governed' is very weak, far too vague to be helpful and a lot of it is covered elsewhere in the book. The static picture it presents is also very misleading. The chapter on 'Elizabethan World Views' is unbelievably sketchy, and the chapter on the New World even more so. It is really the narrative chapters that drive this book, and make it worthwhile - the chapter on Henry VIII ('Imperium') is absolutely outstanding, for example, as is the one on Edward and Mary. These are the shining gems here.

5. Judging by the other two volumes, I think the editor of the Penguin History of Britain has instructed his authors not to discuss the historiography of their periods explicitly. You will strive in vain to find the name of a single historian in the text - apart from Thomas More and Francis Bacon. This is very refreshing, but conceals from the reader many of the foundations of Brigden's arguments - in fact, you could put away this book unaware that probably no period in the history of England or any other country has been as ferociously debated as this one. It would have been better, perhaps, for Brigden to have written her massive bibliography as a true essay, drawing out some of these debates.

6. Finally, perhaps unfairly, I'd like to have known a little more of Brigden's own opinion - what, at the end of it all, did she think was going on here? The problem with the new trend in historical writing such as this, that is reluctant to fit historical events into grand patterns, that emphasizes contingency over inevitability and events over process, is that it can leave the general reader with more questions than it answers. For many, surely for Brigden (and me!), the fascination of the past is more than enough to warrant study of it. But many will want more - and it is sad that a work of such breadth, intelligence, style and passion may still leave its readers asking where to fit the Tudors into the grand scheme of things...

The author of "A Tudor Story" was an elderly clergyman who developed a fascination for Anne Boleyn early in the 20th century. He experienced a series of coincidences that led him to a succession of psychic mediums who all, in turn, and according to him with no knowledge of his fascination, channeled the spirit of Anne Boleyn during a number of sessions held in the 1920s and 1930s.

The writing style is quaint, but all in all, the reading went smoothly. It was interesting material.

With the rising interest in psychic mediums thanks to John Edward, this book should have some appeal. The author describes the various readings, and the things that Anne said to him.

I actually enjoyed the book. It was rather fanciful, but like I said, who's to say? It's fun to imagine it as the final chapter in the sad story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

This is an interesting book for the devoted Anne Boleyn fan only. It is the story of one man's contact with the spirit of Anne in the twentieth century. Mr. Pakenham-Walsh is cleary very sincere about his belief in his experiences, but some readers may find them a little fanciful. This is not a biography of Anne Boleyn and is not recommended to those who wish to learn about her as a political figure. It centres more on Mr. Pakenham-Walsh's feelings towards his subject, but is nevertheless an interesting account of something which is, at best inexplicable.

In many ways an admirable book and Holroyd writes with elegance, knowledge and wit. He, however, follows the recent trend in biography by feeling it necessary to retail every tiny tidbit he has discovered about John. Long letters are printed, for example, when the relevant information could be capsulized in five words. The reader is finally distracted by the sheer volume of inconsequential material and the overwhelming feeling that the author doesn't believe that the reader can follow where he is going without constant, constant reinforcement. The book edges toward a sixth grade account of the summer at camp in which logical development is snowed under and beautiful writing obscured by detail.

More than 1,500 museums are included; I've never seen such an complete listing in one place. A remarkable feat of thoroughness. Each museum is given a brief overview along with practical information for potential visitors (directions, where to eat, what's nearby). The descriptions were solicited from the museums themselves, thus vary between very brief and overly verbose. A heavier hand by the editors would have benefited the readers of this book. If only to reduce the shear bulk of it -- because it is, after all, a book to be taken along when you travel. I find the printing and binding to be pretty mediocre as well. It's not likely to stand up well to many miles of travel. Since much of the information will be out-of-date in a few short years, though, perhaps that's intentional.

This book profiles four well-known Australians who have lived abroad for most of their adult lives. The book sets out to "concentrate on the reasons for their expatriatism and consider what aspects of their Australian identity they have retained". Sadly, the author relied totally on secondary sources, and did not speak directly to any of his subjects. This limited his ability to peer into their souls; to discover what effect their lives as expatriates have had on their work, and on them as people. In spite of this serious weakness, the author obviously spent a great deal of time studying his subjects. For anyone looking for an introduction to the lives of these incredibly talented Australians, the book is worth reading.

This book appears to be a collection of essays on the Nineteenth Century British parliament. The first chapter is a debunking of Walter Bagehot's book The English Constitution. The following chapters focus on the operation of parties in opposition in the era leading up to the Second Reform Act of 1867, whips and back-benchers, Parliamentary reforms throughout the Nineteenth Century, and the development of politics following 1867. Also included are a rather sketchy chronology, and 30 short quotations from various sources including newspapers, diaries, letters, etc.

I did not find this book as useful as I had hoped. As a totality, it seems to lack any real focus. The writing is not entertaining, giving the feeling of doctoral thesis. The one great saving is the "documents", the short quotations, which I enjoyed much more than the rest of the book.

I found this book to be a good summary of everything I knew after a couple of years in Private Equity. I would strongly recommend it for MBA students who are trying to enter the world of Private Equity.

It is interesting to consider which of the many available chemical compounds some "observers" might use when assessing Britain's famous megaliths. Aubrey Burl, leading scholar in the field, contends the local pubs have sufficiently potent solutions. Clearly, something more than simple daylight is required to inspire some of the novel insights published over the years. Meaden's source of inspiration remains obscure. What is vividly clear from this book is that Meaden's imagination far exceeds his vision - or data.

His thesis is that the stone monuments at Avebury are the symbols of an intense Neolithic fertility cult. The shapes of the stones, their various surface irregularities and their "orientation" all represent devotion to a goddess cult. Filled with speculation, vivid photographs, even more vividly interpreted, the book is a testament to what imagination can produce. Meaden states that "left-facing" stones represent Neolithic "femininity," while the "right-facing" ones are "male." There are breasts, vulvas, various orifices, phallic stones and their shadows. It's a provocative parade of lithic seduction. Evidence for his interpretations relies on his own, earlier, work. No other supportive material is provided - except for his portfolio of carefully situated photographs.

While the maps and diagrams are useful, the photographs belie Meaden's attempts to show us something any geologist can explain. The profile of the human face is not a complex shape. A long curve, broken only by a couple of protrusions - the eyebrow, nose and lips. In stone profiles, the chin is nearly universally absent. A face of rock, irregular to start with, is subject to many forms of weathering. A little water, winter-frozen in a cleft, breaks off, leaving a recess with outcrops above and below. Voila! We now have the eyebrow and nose of a "face" seen from the side. Usually, the form can be detected only during certain times of the day when the shadows are longer, leaving the shapes more distinct. Meaden's collection of photographs beautifully depict how this erosion is revealed.

One should always be cautious opening a book with the words "the secrets" in the title. The implication is almost always that the author has made a revolutionary discovery the rest of us dullards have not. This book is an excellent example. While it would be delightful to learn someone has truly revealed a major aspect of Neolithic society, that breakthrough hasn't been achieved here. Perhaps this book stands as a major contribution to the idea of Neolithic "political correctness." It is certainly not a work of scholarship.

But the information was pretty outdated in a lot of cases. Even though the book was published in 1995, the information seems to be cut off in the late 1970s.

What I'd like to know about ghost books by Holzer is why every haunted house always turns out to have a whole bunch of ghosts once the psychics get involved. It really shakes my ability to suspend disbelief. But I suppose that's the whole nature of Holzer's books-- they're so chatty and credulous he comes out sort of as the Arch Merrill of ghost books.