This book was a very interesting true story of several British naval officers and their guides who travelled from Hudson Bay into the interior of Canada and up the Coppermine River to the northern coast of the North America. This expedition took several years. As their journey progressed so did the sufferings they endured. Several members of the group died of starvation and other causes. One was murdered and his killer was shot. It was incredible that anyone survived.

Anyone interested in the Arctic exploration and early Native Americans will enjoy this book. The author, Sir John Franklin, was a fearless explorer who died on a subsequent Arctic mission. He descibes his meetings with the traders and local inhabitants in great detail. He relied in large part on local Native Americans as guides and hunters. It was his intention to meet with the Eskimo people, who avoided all contact with his group. The Native Americans refused to accompany the group all the way north due to their fear of the Eskimos. I highly recommend this book.

Journey Toward Hope is a history of African-Americans in Oklahoma, emphasizing the period after statehood (post-1907). Race relations and segregation are detailed in this period of Jim Crow laws. This is a little-told part of Oklahoma's history and one that needs to be more broadly understood. African-Americans in Oklahoma faced many of the same prejudices and difficulties that Blacks faced in the Deep South, but also were able to maintain a high level of involvement and activism in securing their full participation in American society. Ground-breaking court cases that eventually led to the dramatic Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education and culminated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act are presented in an interesting writing style that never gets bogged down in legal-ese. This is a personal story of people and the contributions they made to improve their lives and their communities, improving their country in the process. It is well written with good notes on sources, of which the majority are primary, with some personal interviews between the author and the historical figures. Journey Toward Hope is a very good account of a little-told part of Oklahoma history and American history and well worth the read.

A Killing in the Market is about one of the Hardy boys' mysteries they have to solve. After Cyril Bayard stops a thief from stealing Frank and Joe's aunt's purse, Aunt Gertrude and Cyril fall in love. One day, Cyril is found dead at the docks. All of the police's evidence leads them to believe that Aunt Gertrude killed Cyril. Frank and Joe are dertermined to prove that Gertrude is innocent. In their investigations, they discover that Henry Simone, a man involved in Wall Street, has been using the alias of Cyril Bayard to avoid being killed by a dangerous group of men. The boys later run into Eric Clifton, a helpful detective. While doing some investigating in New York, the boys discover that Clifton killed Henry Simone along with the help from a group of terrorists called the Mob. If you're ready for some action and a lot of adventure, this is the book for you.

Susan Moody has developed the character, Cassandra Swann, much farther than she was able to in her previous work, "Grand Slam". Swann discovers just how much the murder of her beloved father, Handsome Harry Swann, has affected her attitude about everything in life, particularly men. While busy teaching bridge, she juggles solving the murder of an Indian neighbor of her business partner; the apparent dissolution of her affair with handsome police detective Walsh; the intriguing liaison with an appealing young author; and the delightful if heavy-handed romantic forays of Charles Quartermain around the need to discover the truth about her father's death. This is a "can't put it down" book and a giant leap forward in the series

I like Shaun Cassidy's music, and knew he starred in "The Hardy Boys Mysteries", based on the books, so that's what got me interested in reading them. Of course my grade school teachers read a chapter to us almost every day, so I knew about them a long time ago. This is a very interesting book about comic book villains suddenly turning out to be real! I remember a part in this book when one of them pushed a big boulder down a driveway and the boulder was really fake. I started collecting them since then, and never stopped reading them.

I enjoyed this book. I like reading about detective stories. My favorite part of the book was when George tracked the Hardys down in the warehouse. I would have never thought to throw burning paper at him! The only bad part was the language. They used lingo that sounded like it was from the 50's. In all, it was a great book to read and i would recommend it to all ages.

This volume presents a good overview of the place of 'magic' in the Greek and Roman worlds. It should be interesting to modern practitioners as well as to students of history and culture.

The book begins by examining the meaning of the term 'magic', especially as related to the term 'religion'. Beginning with the ways of the Magi, and its development through the 'mystery cults' and influences from Egypt, Persia and the Graeco-Egyptian papyri, the author traces the growth and change of the idea of magic in classical culture.

The book then considers the figure of the magician, and the place of magical arts. It uses interesting classical sources, including a well-documented trial for sorcery of a Roman scholar. Two chapters address the rites if initiation of magicians, and the large body of evidence for the use of curse tablets and images.

The book emphasizes magic as a personal and individual approach to the spiritual, and how that brought magicians under suspicion by religious authorities. It discusses the development of the literary image of the mage.

I found the book to be satisfyingly scholarly, yet well written and engaging. The author shows a quiet humor that helps make this a very good book on a fascinating topic.

Ian Corrigan Tredara@ncweb.com

"Makers of American Diplomacy," edited by Frank J. Merli and Theodore A. Wilson, collects 25 essays each of which focuses on a particular "maker." Here is the roll call: Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Charles Wilkes, James K. Polk, William Henry Seward, Hamilton Fish, James Gillespie Blaine, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, Willard D. Straight, Woodrow Wilson, James T. Shotwell, Henry L. Stinson, Stanley K. Hornbeck, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dean Acheson, George F. Kennan, John Foster Dulles, John F. Kennedy, J. William Fulbright, and Henry A. Kissinger. So we have nine Presidents, almost as many Secretaries of State, several political theorists, a couple of proponents of naval power, and Benjamin Franklin. When I read this book, actually the two paperback volumes, it was the supplemental reading for one of my American Diplomacy classes. The strength of these essays is that they see key moments in American diplomatic history as extensions of individual personalities. This would be very much in the Thomas Carlyle "hero in history" mode. Thus we understand American Destiny in terms of Seward, diplomatic activisim through the eyes of T.R., containment in terms of Truman, and balance of power in terms of Kissinger. As a supplemental text this is an excellent collection of essays that flesh out the history of American diplomacy in human terms.

First and foremost an academic publication, MAKING THE LOCAL NEWS is now something of a definitive tome for all those involved in what Franklin describes as 'the original grass roots of the press'. Franklin and co have managed the unenviable task of writing a broad spectred account of this hugh area of modern journalism while giving the reader enough depth of perspective to make the whole process worthwhile. In short, it is macrocosm in microcosm; and easily the most quotable book available on this fascinating subject.

Geographers have often focused their investigations on the of the expression Place in the physical and material landscape. In Mapping the Invisible Landscape, Kent Ryden explores the unexplored non-material expressions of Place that dwells in the landscape, coincident with the material and physical reality. The "change of the landscape by experience" is done in the material, resulting in the cumulative idea of the cultural landscape. This change is also expressed in the invisible landscape of the mind, manifest through the written essay and the "folk" expression of the popular and personal imaginations. Ryden explores the relationship betwen imagined and material spaces with a convincing and powerful style.

The structure of the monograph lends itself to the explanation of concepts and meanings, the expression of viewpoint, and the application of methods in a manner that is readable and persuasive. Ryden draws on a wide base of literature ranging from the scholarly expression of geographic ideas (Relph's Place and Placelessness;Francaviglia's Hard Places; and Taun's Space and Place), the writing of place oriented essayists and writers (Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!; Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways; Lopez's Crossing Open Ground; and Berry's Collected Essays), and the oral histories that emerged in the folklore of the Coeur D'Alene Mining District of Idaho. Ryden skillfully blends these traditions of Place-centered expression. The tools and techniques founded in folklore and geography are used to explore the cognitive landscape that is expressed in the compressed narratives of those who live in a Place. The techniques lend themselves to full exploration of the literary expression of Place that correlates to experiential meanings.

A great deal of the recent work on matters of Place has been conducted by those outside the field of Geography, and have been offered for popular consumption. Works such as Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways and Prairie Earth, Guerreau's Nine Nations of North America, and Lopez's "The American Geographies" contribute to the body of academic geography while popularizing the importance of Place with the public at-large. Ryden successfully contributes to the body of scholarly knowledge in a manner that appeals to the popular audiences.

Ryden succeeds in exploring the different cartographies that are possible when rethinking the meaning of "maps", the symbolic representation of reality. The use of actual or metaphorical artifacts in the definition of the reality in which they exist is skillfully employed to structure the work. The exploration of material items, such as the stone post marking the Connecticut-Rhode Island boundary and the bump in the driveway of the author's childhood home, serve to illustrate, in clear and concrete terms, the power of Meaning attached to Place or Object revealed in relation to the contextual reality. These concrete examples are used to bookend the metaphorical and symbolic meanings of real and literary "objects", such as Wallace Stevens "jar in Tennessee" and Bunker Hill Mine in the Couer d'Alene, creating meaning in the invisible geographies on the mind of the resident or participant observer. The actual landscape has meaning only in relation to the "jar" of the self.