In 1264 the barons led by Simon de Montfort and those loyal to King Henry III seem inevitably heading towards civil war over the issue of divine right of the monarch. In Lewes, BELASET'S DAUGHTER Judith should be preparing for her upcoming nuptials to Aaron. Instead she sees the dispute between Henry and Simon as a chance to revenge the bloody massacre of her father and other family as well as other Jews incited by the noble baron a decade ago.

As a messenger disguised as a male working for the King, Judith travels back and forth across the Channel to France returning with a message. However, her final defiance leads to de Montfort's followers seeking to prevent Judith from delivering the message to Henry's supporters.

BELASET'S DAUGHTER is a tremendous historical fiction tale that employs mostly real persona and events including the Battle at Lewes to provide a powerful fictionalized account of events during that time period. The story line is filled with espionage and other action yet adheres to what is known in the thirteenth century to include the Jews (Belaset and Judith apparently really lived and an actual genocide pogrom occurred). The novel provides sub-genre fans with deep insight into a pivotal period inside an exciting tale that deserves sequels at least leading to the 1290-expulsion edict.

Harriet Klausner
Sime/Gen

Bridget O'Brien was so human that I expected her to come over for tea! In this novel, a woman named Bridget O'Brien is a widow with two children that is compelled to marry a complete stranger and to live on Scotland Road with her middle-aged husband, Sam Bell, and his two sons, Anthony and Liam. This entire book is all about a woman's strength to survive in a harsh world and to find happiness. I thoroughly enjoyed this story because of its entertaining dialogue, rich characters, and wonderful setting.

Anybody who wonders why he or she seems to be driven by something other than the "normal" things (e.g., wealth, the American Dream, wanting to fit in) should read this book. While not in the least sentimental, this child's-eye-view of a talented but brooding family member goes straight to the heart. As a bonus, it includes some oddly moving poetry written by the same family member.

Dr. Baillie Hamilton's theory of Chemical Calories is truly groundbreaking. The results achieved by the reduction of chemical calories in my diet has enabled me to achieve weight loss when nothing else worked. Doesn't it make sense that the same chemicals used to slow down the metabolism of the animals we use for our food sources can slow down our metabolism as well?
She gives us alternatives to the chemical laden food we are used to consuming on traditional "diets" and offers a life-long alternative...reduce chemical calories and enjoy food once again. Along with proper supplementation, you can be healthy and slimmer, restoring your metabolism to its normal rate.

This is a really good two volume commentary on Genesis. I like it better than Gordon Wenham's two volume work for several reasons: 1) It is easier to read. 2) There are many points where Hamilton focus on applying the text to the New Testament and to the practical Christian life, 3) you don't have to have a knowledge of hebrew to access this mammoth work. So if you're doing a Bible study on Genesis or if you're preaching through it, then this is the top of the line.

A very concise and practical source of information about medicines and their use.

I read "Business Letters That Get Results" and it TOTALLY revolutionized my writing style and effectiveness. Now, letter writing is a joy! Mr. Jones' easy to read book challenged me to rethink my old ways of letter writing, and his practical "How To's" made it easy for me to say exactly what I needed to say. The bottom line? His approach has helped me distance myself from the competition...(I just hope none of THEM read this!)

If you want to find out what can be learned about environmental policy from excellent fundamental research, read Calculating Risks by James T. Hamilton and W. Kip Viscusi. In contrast, the debates over environmental policy are often muddled by poor empirical work; politicians and newspapers use the "telling" anecdote; and many public policy writers on environmental topics throw together bits of data from some standard sources and then perform statistical analysis, much of which suffers from aggregation biases and inadequate data.

Hamilton and Viscusi decided to dig deep and collect the kind of data needed to make an assessment of the effectiveness of environmental policy. They study the Superfund, which has been established to clean up hazardous-waste sites around the country. They start with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) documents that describe the hazardous waste and the nature of the dangers in more than two hundred sites around the country. They then match that information with data on socioeconomic factors in the same areas. In some case studies, they collect housing prices to allow them to examine the impact of the Superfund sites on housing values. Finally, they develop information about the political and economic forces that might influence EPA decisions about cleaning up various sites. Originally a series of articles that went through the peer-review process and were published in some of the leading economics and public-policy journals, Calculating Risks can be understood by policymakers, yet it contains enough dense material to ensure that strong-willed and avid students of political economy can examine exactly how Hamilton and Viscusi came to their conclusions. The result is an excellent political-economic analysis of Superfund.

One caveat is necessary. The discussions of the compensating differentials in labor and real-estate markets seem to assume that the full value that people place on avoiding risk is reflected in the estimated compensating differentials. That assumption is problematic because it presumes that information costs are low and that markets are essentially frictionless. More likely, the compensating differentials give a lower-bound estimate on how people evaluate the risks. My best guess is that in most cases the compensating differentials may understate the buyer's actual value of a statistical life by about 20 to 30 percent. Even if understated as much as 75 percent by the compensating differentials, however, the true value of a life would still be only in the $20 million range. Still, in many cases, the Superfund is paying far more than $20 million to reduce the risk of a statistical death.

Anyone interested in environmental policy needs to take a long, hard look at Calculating Risks. In places, the analysis is somewhat dense for the noneconomist, but in both the introduction and the conclusion of each chapter, the authors do a good job of explaining their results and the significance of what they have discovered. Some readers might quibble with certain specific interpretations, but my sense is that such quibbles will not influence the overall effect of the book. Hamilton and Viscusi have put together a truly impressive set of evidence, and they have painstakingly analyzed the operation of the Superfund. I doubt that one could find a better analysis in any other source.

The analysis is also fair-minded. The authors are not cranks tilting the data and the analysis to conclude that the Superfund should be eliminated. Instead, they focus on trying to find ways to make the program more effective. The EPA could save a similar number of lives at much lower cost if the EPA were allowed to follow an alternative strategy for choosing where and when to clean up hazardous waste. Further, the funds saved by the change in EPA policy could be used to save more lives in other areas. Of course, there is no guarantee that reducing the spending on the Superfund would lead to greater risk-reduction spending elsewhere. After all, one of the key lessons of the book is that political pressures can sway agency decisions in ways that are not always consistent with the stated goals of their projects.

If you want only one book for minerals, rocks and fossils this is the one. Covers what you really find in the field instead of only the best or rarest stuff. I give it a 5.