For some American readers like me, the tragedy of Princess Diana's death may have pointed up how little we know about the British royal family and sent us looking for sources. After starting and discarding several tendentious "histories" of the House of Windsor, I found this one to be a breath of fresh air. Peter Fearon has written an objective, concisely-written, exhaustive account of the royal family (beginning with the death of Queen Victoria), and yet has done so in a highly readable way. Unlike every other author I've seen so far, Fearon doesn't seem to have an axe to grind about the Windsors. I'm in my 40s and hadn't been exposed to much of the history here and found it fascinating. I was sorry to finish the book.

I have been studying the Shaker lifestyle and artifacts for a good number of years and having read Dr. Kassays newest book leaves me with a feeling of the most comprehensive study to date.

If you haven't read many of the individual histories and biographies of the Royal Family, this book will give you the real stories from Queen Victoria to the present Queen. These are strange people and it is only by accident of birth that they are where they are. Some parts will make you laugh and others will make you cry. The author doesn't give us much hope that history won't repeat itself. It may all be over upon the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

This is an early, early Hammond Innes & one of his best!

A pale & wasted clerk in sooty old London trudges back to his colorless digs after being told he's going to die soon. It seems he's going to simply give up the ghost without a whimper.

Then he receives an airmail letter advising him that an uncle has died & left him his land, high in the Rocky Mountains in the wilds of Western Canada.

With nothing to lose, Bruce quits his job & sets out to see for himself what lies beyond the ocean & across a continent.

There he tumbles into an old feud, rarified mountain air & an isolated community split asunder by the discovery of black gold.

This is a hopeful tale of how a hopeless fellow regains his courage, his tenacity &, incidentally, his health.

Years ago it was made into a rivetting movie with a cast of English stars & I relish both!

After reading Deborah and Barak I found it to be a very good historical romance novel. It kept my interest from beginning to end with excellent dialog. As I continued reading this book, I found some very insightful principles of spirituality and metaphysics that really sparked my interest. Also, I must commend the authors for some light humor that helped to make the reading a pleasure.

Verdi's two Comedies philosophically, and emotionally, frame his long career. While writing Il Giorno di Regno, his first comedy, and only his second opera, the rather naive young Verdi lost his first wife and their children in a fire. Needless to say, the opera wasn't very funny, and the audience booed it off the stage. Verdi quit Opera...he thought for good. However, his self-imposed exile didn't last long, and Verdi eventually wrote several of Opera's greatest masterpieces. He also loved Giuseppina, first as his paramour, eventually as his second wife, became one of Europe's most generous philanthropists, and admired his great rival Richard Wagner, who referred to Verdi simply as "pig." Arrigo Boito, a genius in his own right (if you don't believe it, get a good recording of Mefistofele), testified in Italian newspapers that Verdi's "old ways" of writing Opera were permanently invalidated by Wagner. Yet one day, eight years after Verdi had retired for the second time, Boito, the great Verdi hater, came to Sant' Agata, hat in hand, to ask Verdi to compose music for two Shakespearean music dramas he had written. The second of those music dramas, Falstaff, was to be Verdi's second comedy, and his last opera. Falstaff is a towering monument to artistic collaboration. In it, Verdi, Boito, and Shakespeare tell us that life is a great cosmic joke, and, since we cannot escape being its brunt, we might as well laugh along. Dover republished an early Ricordi edition of Falstaff. Ricordi is, simply put, the most useful publisher of late romantic Italian opera, especially of Verdi and Puccini. The scholarship is top notch, making this Dover edition quite a useful volume. The book itself is, as always, well crafted and easy to read. The score may be too large, and the book too small, to make this volume useful for the podium, but at home, in front of the stereo, it's invaluable. Falstaff is one of the west's great example's of existentialism expressed in artistic form. If you are not familiar with this opera, I strongly recommend you buy this score, and a good recording to go with it, and knock yourself out.

The Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series is just wonderful; it's like a "Cliff Note" of the opera, and extremely informative and educational. I particularly like the size; these guides are not cumbersome and fit right into my shirt pocket. The ladies will find sufficient room in their pocketbooks.

The story narrative with the music examples is excellent. I prefer it to a libretto; indeed, it's a much easier way to follow the essence of the story. The essay is magnificent; very well written, not pedantic, and extremely insightful and comprehensible. I congratulate Burton Fisher for a job very well done and Amazon for making these handy, information-laden booklets available. The Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series is a wonderful contribution to opera education and opera appreciation.

My tip: acquire the entire collection because you will be in easy reach of superbly presented opera guides consisting of story analysis, principal characters in the opera, story narrative with music highlights, background, analysis, and commentary.

Heinz Dinter, Ph.D.

This book is the book you have been searching for! It gives you a sense of self once you complete the first few chapters. The author explains his theories and turns them into solid facts by footnoting nearly every page. I checked some of the book that he quoted from, and now I find myself reading all I can get my hands on when it comes to Ancient Covilization! From Babylon to Timbuktu is the tale of a great race that still exists today: the Africans. And the story of Babylon reminds us of modern-day America... perhaps New York City.

Well written. I liked both the hero and the heroine. Interesting plot, all the good stuff. Nice cover. =)