Anything by Prof. Page is good! This book is a collection of some of his harder-to-find essays on runes, spanning a number of decades. I treasure my copy, and recommend it most highly to the serious student of runes.

I had been looking for a book of monastaries and convents which were open to visitors and offered retreats.
Sanctuaries was just what I had been searching for!
I visited St. Joseph's Abbey in Massachusetts, based on the description given in this book, and was pleasantly rewarded.
This is a wonderful book for anyone looking for a simpler way of looking at our complicated lives.

Christopher Foss is the world's leading armored vehicle expert and writes continually for Jane's, in this work he explores the reasoning behind the creation of a light TRACKED armored fighting vehicle (AFV) by the British to do armed reconnaissance, with a desire to be "stealthy" and air-deployable. What is most revealing is that Foss shows that the U.K. chose wisely to make the Scorpion/Scimitar family under 8 tons rather than in the 15 ton category, making it HELICOPTER air-transportable, hence an "Air-Mech" capability. The pay-off is that when the British Army needed armor in the 1974 Cyprus crisis they were able to fly in Scorpions by C-130s. When the Falklands War came, these amazing vehicle's light weight and light tracked ground pressure allowed them to be there to render battle-winning fire support for British Paratroopers marching across the island.

By the book ending before the Kosovo crisis, Foss is unable to mention the Scimitar family being CH-47 Chinook helicoptered into the area avoiding mines, obstacles, road ambushes to be the first NATO forces on the ground. Foss does with the beautiful illustrations of Peter Sarson show the Scorpion family in action in the Gulf war where a certain bias comes through in Foss. Foss clearly misunderstands that bigger engine and weight translates into "greater mobility" (the ultra-heavy school of AFV thought) which makes him wrongly conclude that when the Scorpion family in the Gulf war "couldn't keep up" with the 60-ton Challenger main battle tanks that the former is obsolete. If the Challenger had been around for the Falklands war in 1982, we could equally say, "It couldn't keep up with the Scorpion/Scimitars" because it couldn't even deploy much less traverse the soft, wet boggy terrain of the South Atlantic islands. Foss should know that when he describes that the Scorpion family had to make do with a petrol engine in the 60s when it was created, that the same high-power-to-weight-ratio diesel engine technology that gives us the Challenger can be used to upgrade the Scorpion/Scimitar family to make it as fast as the Challengers in the open desert as they are certainly more mobile everywhere else.

Its a great book, and a must have for the modern tactical futurist because the Scorpion family has been extremely successful despite the wishes of the heavyists--that Striker versions have killed heavy Iraqi tanks using guided missiles points the way to the future--light TRACKED AFVs that can go anywhere and be air-transported with top-attack missiles, cannon and can carry infantry. While the heavy AFVs sit in the motor pool, the Scorpion family deploys around accomplishing missions---why not UPGRADE THEM?

The most amazingly organized, concise, factual shopping guide there is. A fabulous stocking stuffer.....stuffed with tidbits, locations, telephone #'s. Absolutely guaranteed to produce a call from you credit card company. This title, along with its worldwide sisters, should not be missed. If you're going through customs, leave the European ones with friends.....they're a sure tip off that you've been in a buying mode!
One of the best Christmas present/stocking stuffers.

In this book Admiral Woodward has provided the reader with an informative and candid view of a task force commander at war. His myriad of concerns; logistics, weather, technology, numbers, and the interference of politics and the modern media in the campaign are presented in a very readable format. It was interesting to read his asessments that Argentina could have won the war by concentrating their air attacks on the 2 British carriers (fortunately the Brits hadn't sold them) or the amphibs. As a naval officer, and a student of military history, it was refreshing to see a modern commander admit that such things as acceptable losses and expendable commands really do exist in the conduct of warfare. His humor and leadership style, warts and all, are a primer in command and control under fire. The book presents dramatic descriptions of many tragic episodes, such as the sinkings of the HMS Coventry and the Atlantic Conveyor. Unfortunately, since the book was written from a naval officer's point of view, the land campaign was given rather short notice therefore leaving out an important portion of the fight. I highly recommend the book for professionals and buffs alike.

This fine naval autobiography takes us behind the scenes of the Falklands sea/air (not ground) war and modern battle management in general. Admiral Woodward didn't exactly know what he was sailing into back in 1982, and makes no attempt to hide his personal sense of vulnerability as Britain's first fighting admiral in high-tech warfare. In fact, the entire book is refreshingly down-to-earth. Woodward is quick to note that he was tapped for the job because he happened to be the navy's closest flotilla commander at the time (in Gibraltar)--and confides that his superiors almost replaced him with a higher-ranking officer even as he led the task force into danger. This is no stuffed-shirt memoir.

Woodward and co-author Patrick Robinson weave accounts of grand strategy and military politics through a genuinely absorbing narrative of men and machines in heavy weather, incessant tactical maneuvering, and flashes of terrifying combat. Along the way, there are plenty of 'what-if's to chew on. We learn that Woodward had to manipulate London to get HMS Conqueror to sink the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano (British subs weren't under his tactical command). He explains why the sinking was both necessary and tragic, and how Conqueror watched but spared Argentine ships coming to Belgrano's aid. He also reveals that his ships almost shot down a Brazilian airliner mistaken for a pesky Argentine recon jet; he personally gave the order to withhold fire. And Woodward's character shines through his account of ordering HMS Alacrity on a potential suicide mission to scout mines--in an exceptionally gracious mea culpa of command, he praises the captain's sterling courage while faulting his own mundane direction.

Also fascinating are the individual stories of the high number of British ships damaged or sunk, and Woodward's frustration with underperforming anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. This was more of a close call than the world knew at the time, as he makes abundantly clear. Ultimately, his modest approach on paper belies the fact that he and his task force pulled off a truly impressive naval feat. And it's a credit to Woodward the author-analyst that 'One Hundred Days' transcends the Falklands War to give an illuminating, first-person view of campaign and tactical battle coordination. It could find a home on bookshelves of Fortune 500 executives as well as students of naval and air operations. The style is also breezy (and occasionally humorous) enough for the casual reader. I've never seen it in a U.S. store, so thanks, Amazon.

A superior autobiography. Although the focus is plainly on the Falklands, the author provides a fascinating account of the RN's submarine training program -- which reminds one of why the British military, though tiny in size, still maintains some of the best trained warriors in the world.

The meat of the book retells the story of PM Thatcher's courageous decision to retake the Falklands. The author provides a fine defense of the UK's controversial decision to sink the Argentine crusier Belgrano and a compelling account of the terror visited upon his task force by (French-made) exocet anti-ship missles. Unlike many commanders' post-mortems, this book contains little of the standard blame shifting usually found in such works. The Admiral takes you through his decision-making process step-by-step never letting the reader forget that the decisions he made often were made on the basis on VERY incomplete information under intense time-pressure (from the US, the UN and the coming South Atlantic winter) and, often, under fire.

Overall, one comes away thinking the author would have done a bang-up job at Trafalger or Jutland . . . or even taking on the Soviet Navy in the North Atlantic. A must have for those interested in finding out what -- to paraphrase the Iron Duke -- a damn near run thing the Falklands campaign really was.

The tales of King Arthur and of the knights of the Round Table are well-known and have been the subject of many books, poems (Tennyson), at least two musical works (Purcell's "King Arthur", and the famous Broadway musical, "Camelot"), and films ("Camelot", based on the musical, and "Excalibur"). The most famous English-language book version of these tales is this version by Sir Thomas Malory, yet this is not easily readable, even in modern prose. The modern English rendition by Keith Baines is excellent, for it allows those of us who do not have Ph.D's in English literature to get an idea of what the original was like, but the book itself is tedious in its very nature.

What you should expect with this book is a very good beginning and ending, and a "will it ever end ?" middle. Arthur himself cannot be called the central character, for he is virtually absent, except in the first tale of the book, which deals with his coming to power, and the last one, about his death. The rest of this book is concerned with jousting and tournaments, so much that in the end one gets bored with this never-ending succession of fights with knights whose names you'll only read once and which have no consequence on what is supposed to be the larger plot (such as the quest for the Holy Grail, or the famous Tristram and Iseult tale). Of course, the better-known knights of the Round Table, such as Launcelot, Tristram, and Percivale, are present, but only from time to time, and narration often shifts from one to the other for no reason.

What this book lacks most is continuity. Apart from the first and last tales, everything in between is not in chronological order, which gets confusing. In one tale one character is dead and another is well-known; in the next tale the first character is living and the second one is unknown (just take the example of King Pellinore and Sir Percivale). All tales were obviously separate ones, and the reader, at some point, will simply stop trying to understand how Malory ever came up with such an order for his tales. If Malory (or his original publishers) had any idea in mind when they chose this setup of the tales, it will appear unclear to most readers.

One of the few good points of this book is that, since it was written in the late Middle Ages, it avoids to a certain extent the over-romanticization of the Middle Ages, which is what later authors, such as Sir Walter Scott, did to such an extent that even today we cannot think of the Middle Ages without having in mind the picture-perfect version of it (which I will not delve into -- I'm sure you know what I have in mind). Even though chivalry as described in the book has some romantic elements attached to it, it is never fully exploited, and "Le Morte d'Arthur" certainly does not fit the requirements to be classified into the romantic genre (which was not fully described until the nineteenth century). This book therefore does not use romanticism as we now know it. But this good point may also be one of the book's weaknesses, because the topic is a legend, and not fact. Because this subject is not historically accurate (and some parts of the book are hilariously improbable), Malory could not use realism to replace romanticism, and I believe that if he had used more romanticism in his book it would only have made it better. In the end, Malory used neither style, and this makes his writing style very dry. His characters are mere fighting machines with no emotional depth, his narration is action, action, and action: no description, either of his own characters or of the scenery (a castle is a castle, nothing more). The scenes he depicts cannot be located, for the setting is never described. Malory, above all, was an awful storyteller. He could only describe his characters jousting and fighting, and since this had nothing to do with the larger plot, this only lengthens the book for no reason. (If you want a modern comparison, just think of a public orator who just tells personal anecdotes that are not related to his topic.)

Furthermore, anyone interested in the Middle Ages has nothing to gain from reading this book. It holds no historical interest (apart from a study of the English language, but then I would not go for this modern rendition) for the reason that its subject is not based on fact and its description of society in the early Middle Ages is simplistic. This book is certainly no "Canterbury Tales", in which a lot can be learned about what was life during the Middle Ages. So if you are mainly interested in history I'd skip "Le Morte d'Arthur" and I'd go for "The Canterbury Tales" instead.

In conclusion, "Le Morte d'Arthur" is worth reading only if you have the patience to go through it, for this book is overlong and repetitive. Keith Baines's rendition makes this task easier, and his appendix on the main characters is very helpful if you intend to skip parts (which you should not do because the whole is chronologically inaccurate).

I don't read a lot. In fact, the only time I do read is when I am required to do so by a class. Such is the case with The Tales of King Arthur. But although I would never have read the book were it not for my fascinating English teacher, I must say that I have never read anything as intriguing as the Tales of King Arthur.

Getting used to the language isn't as difficult as some other reviewers are saying... At least it wasn't for me (and I'm an eighteen year-old high school student). You'll struggle through the first few pages but once you've got an ear for it the language comes natural (somewhat like reading Shakespeare - it takes time to adjust). I found nothing tedious about the book other than the somewhat unfocussed book of the Sangrail.

The characters are awesome, the language is awesome, the plots and emotions are awesome. If you read this from beginning to end you'll walk away with a sincere compassion for the characters and the inevitable death of the times.

I can't imagine bothering with a modernized version - the classic text is just so sweet.

This review applies to the abridged audiocassette version. I have not read the book, but I will, after hearing this wonderful reading by Derek Jacobi. His immaculate British accent truly brings to life this epic tale of King Arthur and his knights' adventures. I highly recommend this version and also: 'Excalibur' the movie, T. H. Whites' 'The Once and Future King', and also Carl Orffs' 'Carmina Burana - Empress of the World' - music which was featured in 'Excalibur'. These four put together can give you a truly grand starting experience of the Arthurian Legends.

In the 5 years I have been reading Terot cards, I have seen many different decks, but this is leaps and bounds ahead of all I have seen. The Artwork is so intricately detailed, and the subjects chosen for each card match so well with the meanings of the cards that reading this deck is easy enough for a begining reader, and detailed enough for those who are more practiced at the art. The accompanying book gives such wonderful background information on the Arthurian legends that I often read it just for the stories it contains. If you have even the slightest interest in terot reading or the myths of King Arthur, I say buy this deck. You won't be disapointed.

I have been reading Tarot for two years now, beginning with the standard Rider-Waite deck...over the years I have collected many tarot decks in a search to find the deck I worked best with...Legend is it.

The artwork is exquisite, beautifully detailed watercolors that immediately capture the attention of the viewer.

To help the inexperienced reader, the book "Keeper of Words" is included in the deck, a well written, thoroughly researched guide to reading Legend. In addition to black and white reproductions of each card accompanying a explanation of its meaning, there is also a short history of each character depicted on the cards.

I liked the way each card was dedicated to a different and fitting character in the Legend of King Arthur. I found the deck easy to work with and pleasant to look at. I even like just taking out the guide and reading it. The book explains everything so well and it's also very informative as to Arthurian History. I gave the deck a 10.

I have been reading Tarot for 19 years. During those years I have used many decks but all achieve the same result - divination, suggestions for bettering our lives, defining our goals and ultimately defining our place in this cosmos. I have been using the Robin Wood Deck (also found at Amazon.com). This deck really is perfect for me but I wanted more of a challenge in interpreting the Minor Arcana. I studied the Arthurian cards and found a "je ne sais quoi" when I tried to read them. Something called to me from the depths of the depictions on the cards, it was an almost physical sensation that drew me to them.

The cards are studded with legend regarding Arthur, his knights and their battles. I switched to this deck recently and am currently studying them in depth. New readers will be overcome by their beauty, practiced readers will find not only charm but symbolism that will spark new and creative thoughts for them.

The book "Keeper of the Wor! ds" is not only a book which meticulously explains the symbolism of each card but a story book as well. I would bring the book to bed with me at night; and then, curled in my nice big bed I would read about the deeds, dreams, visions and ultimately the everlasting legend that this time period brings to us.

I can honestly recommend this book to everyone. Enjoy and be prepared to be fascinated!

the Oxford Shakespeare has been touted as 'a new conception' of Shakespeare, but is in fact merely an update of the cumbersome old Arden editions. Like these, 'King John' begins with a 100-page introduction, divided into 'Dates and Sources' (full of what even the editor admits is 'tedious' nit-picking of documentary evidence); 'The Text' (the usual patronising conjecture about misprints in the Folio edition and illiterate copyists); 'A Critical Introduction', giving a conventional, but illuminating guide to the drama, its status as a political play dealing with the thorny problem of royal succession, the contemporary legal ambiguities surrounding inheritance, the patterning of characters, the use of language (by characters as political manoeuvring, by Shakespeare to subvert them); and an account of 'King John' 'In the Theatre', its former popularity in the 18th and 19th century as a spectacular pageant, the play distorted for patriotic purposes, and its subsequent decline, presumably for the same reasons. The text itself is full of stumbling, often unhelpful endnotes - what students surely want are explanations of difficult words and figures, not a history of scholarly pedantry. The edition concludes with textual appendices.
The play itself, as with most of Shakespeare's histories, is verbose, static and often dull. Too many scenes feature characters standing in a rigid tableau debating, with infinite hair-cavilling, issues such as the legitimacy to rule, the conjunction between the monarch's person and the country he rules; the finer points of loyalty. Most of the action takes place off stage, and the two reasons we remember King John (Robin Hood and the Magna Carta) don't feature at all. This doesn't usually matter in Shakespeare, the movement and interest arising from the development of the figurative language; but too often in 'King John', this is more bound up with sterile ideas of politics and history, than actual human truths. Characterisation and motivation are minimal; the conflations of history results in a choppy narrative. There are some startling moments, such as the description of a potential blood wedding, or the account of England's populace 'strangely fantasied/Possessed with rumours, full of idle dreams/Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear'. The decline of the king himself, from self-confident warrior to hallucinating madman, anticipates 'King Lear', while the scene where John's henchman sets out to brand the eyes of the pubescent Pretender, is is full of awful tension.
P.S. Maybe I'm missing something, but could someone tell me why this page on 'King John' has three reviews of 'Timon of Athens'? Is somebody having a laugh?

Timon of Athens has often been thought the work of a madman. Disjointed, polemical, irrational, and downright inelegant, many have thought that Shakespeare (or whosoever it may be) suffered a mental breakdown. This and more surrounds what I believe to be a tragic under-appreciation of this play. This play is NOT the story of a naively generous soul who eventually "faces reality". This is instead the story of a glorious Dionysian self-expender, who, upon realizing the cowardly conservatism of his so-called "peers", runs off to the wilds, to continue expending himself in body and soul. He dies on a curse, the climax of all the "evil wind" he has been sending out, the ultimate self-expension, his ultimate glory. The "tragedy" is the stone cold tablet that lies atop his corpse at the end, and the message of frugality it seems to send out, which is all too easily accepted by fatally declining cultures.

Among the least performed of all the Shakespeare plays, is probably the most disturbing. In the beginning, Timon is (not to put too fine a point on it) stupidly philanthropic; in the end he is equally misanthropic. When Timon is on top of the world, we have the cynical Apemantus to be our voice and let him know what a fool he is. In the last two acts, we simply wish (I do, at least) that our hero would stop complaining and let us "pass and stay not here," as he would have all men do in his epitaph.

But a recording is to be judged on its performances, not so much on its text. The Arkangel series, now in its last laps toward completion before (I am told) it is all redone on CDs, has every reason to be proud of its "Timon of Athens," thanks to its strong and intelligent readings. The opening scenes of artisans and poets building up the play's themes of wheel-of-fortune and gratitude/ingratitude are almost intelligible without a text open before you. Alan Howard, whom I saw in New York long ago as Henry V and as the main character in "Good," has that kind of friendly voice that is so well suited to the extravagant Timon in the open acts that we feel all the more for him when his false friends deny him in his need.

The snarling voice of Norman Rodway's Apemantus is a perfect counterpoint, and he casts out his invective in those early scenes with a hint of humor. However, when Timon becomes the misanthrope, his voice darkens and coarsens; and it is very hard to tell it from Apemantus' in their overly-long exchange of curses in 4:3. If the actor playing Alcibiades (Damian Lewis) sounds far too young for the role, that is a minor quibble--and perhaps the director wanted him to sound like a young Timon.

The incidental music sounds sufficiently Greek but too modern; still, Ingratitude knows no particular time period. A superior production of a much flawed play and a very welcome addition to any collection of recorded drama, especially since the old Decca set is long out of print and Harper audio does not yet have a "Timon" in their series.

What struck me most while reading this book is that it raised the image, time and time again, of the conscious mind trying to understand the elements of a dream. In the final analysis, I found this book to be typical of the historians approach to studying religion and the sacred, meaning it is like a person born and raised in a wealthy family writing about the views of poor people.

In Triumph of the Moon, Hutton tries to make a case for where the concepts found in modern Wiccan originated, using the poetry and philosophy of various writers he feels were key figures in the evolution of modern witchcraft. Hutton focuses largely on writings produced between the 14th and 19th century. Even though much of the content of these writings are based upon pre-existing myths, ancient deities, archaic beliefs and practices, Hutton treats the material of those he cites as being made up out of whole cloth. This fits his agenda nicely, but poorly serves both the readers of this book and the insights of the authors examined by Hutton.

An example of one of Hutton's targets is Robert Graves, and Graves' book The White Goddess. Hutton claims that Graves essentially invented the Triformis Goddess known in Wicca, and her association with the moon as well as the concept of Mother, Maiden, Crone. However, ancient Greek and Roman writers spoke of Hecate and Diana/Artemis as a triformis goddess (often calling her Trivia, goddess of the three roads) and these goddesses were indentified with witches even as late as the first century BC in the writings of Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Additionally, the image of the Mother, Maiden and Crone appears in the iconography of ancient Greece and Rome in the image of the three Fates. Therefore, it is quite clear that Graves did not invent these concepts.

Hutton conveniently dimisses the writings of various historians and commentators such as Michelet, Gomme, Tartarotti, Jancke, Mone and others who held that witchcraft was, to one degree or another, the survival of ancient pagan religion. Hutton ultimately deals with their views as being essentially flights of fancy, and in doing so fails to realize the power and influence of the Muse, as only a historian can.

Joseph Campbell once said that we have two levels and modes of consciousness, the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. He pointed out that each one comprises 50% of our accumulative consciousness, and yet we rely upon only the one half, the conscious mind and its view of the world. In this regard, we can truly say that Hutton's book is indeed a half-brained idea.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It will give you all the details on how Wicca came to be created in the mid-twentieth century, based on literary, artistic, and academic fashions, the practices of fraternal orders and occult societies, old and new folk customs, and other cultural roots (real and imagined) going back to the 1700s. Hutton leaves no hope for those who wish to believe in a constantly existing Pagan religion in Britain or in a connection between the early modern witch trials and Paganism. No one can claim to be knowledgeable about the true history of modern Witchcraft who has not read and carefully studied this text.

This meticulously documented book pounds the final nails into the coffin of the claims Gardner made (and others inflated) that Wicca was an ancient surviving British Pagan religion of Witchcraft. None but the most stubbornly fundamentalist of Orthodox Wiccans can deny it any longer, though I'm sure they will continue to try, as a few of the negative reviews here demonstrate.

Hutton's work supports and amplifies the research into Wiccan history that I and other modern writers have done over the last thirty years. Indeed, the chapter in my new eBook ("Witchcraft: A Concise History") on Gerald Gardner and the birth of Wicca owes a great deal to his clear exposition of complex details.

Every Wiccan should have this book on their shelves.

Finally, a historian has written a book that details the origins of modern Witchcraft and Wicca. And said historian actually did a great deal of research and backs up his thesis with factual, primary source material, as opposed to the usual fantastical wish-fulfillment claptrap that many Neo-Pagan authors use to support thier pet theories regarding the history of Witchcraft.

Some people will be disappointed in this book, no doubt, for nowhere does Hutton mention an unbroken lineage of Witches that stretches beyond the burning times far into the dim reaches of matriarchal prehistory where all the women were strong, the men were beautiful, and the children were peaceful and never hit each other over the head with rocks whilst playing oppressive, competitive male-oriented team sports.

What this book does detail is a plausible explaination as to -why- modern Witchcraft would arise at all, and how it fits into post industrial society. I cannot praise the fact that Hutton doesn't only delve into the history of Witchcraft, but he shows us why it is important in the first place, and what it has to say about society as a whole, and Neo-Pagans in specific.

The book is well-written, if densely packed with information. It is not an easy read; if one skims, one is apt to miss essential details and lose sight of the myriad threads that Hutton traces in his search for the warp and weft of Witchcraft today. I took my time reading this book, savoring it with rhapsodic glee: it was good to find that there was an academic who had actually taken the time to prove some of my own pet theories about Witchcraft in England during the modern period.

At any rate, this book belongs on the shelf of every literate and educated Witch, Wiccan and Neo-Pagan in the world. If we Witches ever got around to opening up schools, I believe this should be a standard history text for any class that includes the study of our religious beliefs. It is always important to know where one comes from, in order to better decide where one would like to go.

The cover of this book is done in Victorian style, and the prose is Gothic, formal, and "very British." Although it's probably sailing on the trend of current sea books, like "The Perfect Storm", and the story of the whaling ship Essex, this book is different in tone. I found it enjoyable yet I do have reservations about the "docu-drama" style of imagined conversations, emotions, and memories, which to my mind, trivializes real events. I realize the constraints which the author faced, as all the characters are long dead, not available for interviewing.

It is a gripping, elemental story of a situation few of us like to think about. One fact is particularly haunting: Sometimes men on leanly-provisioned ships would "not see" a small boat of desperate people, fearing that if they rescued them, there would not be enough food for all. Leaders of shipwrecked survivors would have to instruct some of them to hide in the bottom of the boat so that a ship would approach. So much for brave captains and the noble code of the sea!

The Custom of the Sea is a well-written, well-researched and compelling look at a harrowing piece of maritime history. The "custom" refers to cannibalism on the high seas. The author tells the story of the wreck of the Mignonette in a non-sensational way but not fliching from providing the details . If you like adventure stories, I would heartily recommend this book

This is a troubling story about a group of men that have to deceide what their morals are really made of. Four men start out from England on an expidition to deliver a yacht to its new owner in Australia. Though the trip is dangerous all the men aboard have their reasons to take the chance. Whether it is for the money or a chance at a new life these men set out on a journey that will bring them to the edge of death when the ship goes down in a storm. The men cast off in a life boat with very little food and drinking water. As their physical condition deteriorates they are faced with a major decision...to follow the custom of the sea to save themselves or to follow their morality and most surely die. The last portion of the book deals with the legal problems associated with their decision and their lives after the sinking. This book is a great story that will evoke many emotions in the reader. The book is easy to read, and the story will grip you so you can't put it down. I highly recomend it.