A fairly irritating book about an important subject, this book is loaded with a collection of traveling non-sequiturs that are collated and vaguely related to findings of the author as he makes the same trip that Sir John Mandeville made starting in 1322. Mandeville wrote a book after his 34-year journey called The Travels that influenced many important people after him. For example, Christopher Columbus, influenced by Mandeville's book, proposed his voyage to the new world to Queen Isabella of Spain and was turned down. Months later, after Isabella had read Mandeville's book she was approached again by Columbus and she changed her mind, funding his history making voyage to the new world. Mandeville's book was used by many others as a reference for hundreds of years until somewhere in the 1800's when he and his book were discredited and Mandeville generally became known as a fraud, never having actually traveled to the places he claimed to have visited. In The Riddle and the Knight, Milton's trip to all the same places starts off with the promise of getting to the bottom of a very old debate, "Did Mandeville actually take the trip he claimed he took? By actually making the same trip today, what could be found to either prove or disprove Mandeville once and for all?" That's a great idea but the writer got bogged down including almost everything that happened to him on his 20th century journey whether it added to proving Mandeville's journey or not. On page 189, Milton is staying in a monastery in Egypt and two U.N. peacekeepers stumble upon the ancient institution. One of them is an American who is remarkably like Gomer Pyle. Halfway through this jewel, I paused and thought, "This episode will have no bearing whatsoever on what Milton is doing with his story." True enough, it didn't. It was simply a loud and colorful, intrusion into the quiet life of the monastery Milton was staying in. "What the heck. Let's put it in the book." Milton was fair in citing the frequent number of times that almost every ancient author would plagiarize one another and that Mandeville was not much different. Unlike the book's title, The Riddle and the Knight, any references to a riddle somewhere in the book were sparse, casual, and hugely unfulfilled. The author also missed the opportunity to properly observe that all early discoverers and travelers were at some point liars who all knew that keeping the attention of those who listened would sometimes require mention of the strange men foreign lands who have no heads, or really giant women from another distant land or strange elixirs that have remarkable healing powers. It's all part of giving the audience what they want or need to hear, from P.T. Barnum to Ripley's Believe It Or Not to the nightly news.

This book wears two faces: 1) a travel book, and 2) an attempt at some serious historical research. The author, Giles Milton, a professional writer/journalist, sets out to retrace the path of the legendary fourteenth-century traveler and writer, Sir John Mandeville. Milton's ostensible goal is to rehabilitate Mandeville's controversial reputation.

Sir John Mandeville was the alleged author of one of the most famous early-renaissance books. From about 1350 to 1800, his "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" was incredibly popular and influential, rivaling the Bible and Euclid's Elements. Then, about 1800, scholars began to question whether "Mandeville wrote Mandeville" -- or indeed whether there ever was such a man. His book is still in print (see Penguin Classic, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville), and is even making something of a comeback,

Mr. Milton is a good writer, and as a travel book his work is quite entertaining. Minimally, it gives us a chance to compare the Middle-East-now with what it was in Mandeville's time. For those who like travel books, that might be enough to make the book worthwhile. Some woodcuts taken from a 1481 edition of Mandeville are real gems. (Penguin should have included these.)

But as serious historical research I have problems with the book. Mr. Milton tries to convince us that Sir John Mandeville really did exist. The historical evidence he presents is weak, at best, and consists chiefly of a barely legible epitaph in St. Albans Abbey. But even here some rigorous scholarship is missing. (What is the earliest mention of this epitaph? To whom is it attributed? Have other scholars noted the inscription, and at what dates? What are their opinions regarding its authenticity?)

My overall impression is that Mr. Milton was not able to gather the evidence he was hoping for, and so had to temporize. I was particularly disappointed that the second edition does not address any of these weaknesses.

A fascinating read! The satisfaction comes not in finally putting to rest the historical debate whether Sir John Mandeville ever made his epic pilgrimmage but rather in going along with Milton as he makes his journey. Settle into your favorite armchair and take off on a most engaging travel narrative. Along the way you will decide for yourself the truth about Sir John's narrative, which is exactly the way all such quests should be pursued.

Buy this book for the pictures. They are outstanding. The text is only average. The AKC breed standard is included.

A very nice book. Easy too read, extensive, describes all you have to know about bringing up a puppy, and MANY BEAUTIFUL pictures. I missed more detaild facts of the Clumber.

I loved the great colorful pictures but I sometimes didn't think you talked about the Clumber Spaniel specifically, but instead talked about dogs as a whole.

This is a classic book for young readers and I had thought it would be accurate on the level of the readers. I looked back at a copy with a publishing date of 1985 and I was shocked when I saw the apatasaurus called the old, incorrect name of "brontosaurus." But that was not the worst error! Many older books have the name wrong 9and thus the wrong head, but that can be a minor thing.
But it got worse when it showed the "brontosaurus" as having nostrils on top of its head, which is actually a feature of the Brachiasaurus. And then having it hid from the Allosaurus (correct predator, at least) under water perpetuates the swamp-dwelling, water-immersing behavior model which is again incorrect.
If only those offending pages could be excised it would get four or five stars. The book does show the flying and swimming contemporaries of the dinosaurs; correctly identifying them as not being "dinosaurs." That could be more explicit but the point is made, even if subtly.

Now I see above there is a new publishing date. I hope the offending passage has been corrected. Then it would be a solid four-star book.

This is a good book for kids starting to read, that have an interest in dinosaurs. My son likes the part about how nobody knows what color dinosaurs were.

My four year old son checked this book out of the library. I've renewed the loan twice. He loves it so much that I just purchased two copies. _Dinosaur Days_ is informative and engaging for the young reader. He even uses it as a reference work to check whether he is correct in his indentification of his toy dinosaurs. I would highly recommend this book!

As someone who has lived and worked in the Hunza and Baltistan region of northern Pakistan for a decade, it is important to first debunk the myth that the Burushushki, Wakhi and Shina people of the Hunza region are blessed with the lives of Methusula. This was actually a myth which gained momentum when it was written up by Dr. Alexander Leaf, in the January 1973 issue of National Geographic magazine. There is absolutely no scientific validity to his claim....

People of the Hunza suffer from malnutrition and nutrition deficiencies just as much as any other remote mountain region in SE Asia. Although the predominantly Ismaeli faith (branch of Shi-ite muslims) are progressive and relatively better off than most of their neighbours in nearby regions, they will all tell any visitor, that their life expectancy is around 50 - 60 years, just like any other region of northern Pakistan.

With that said, there certainly is valuable information in Jay Milton Hoffman and John Westerdahl's book about nutrition, stress reduction that would benefit millions in our obese western societies.

I was a little disappointed with this book. A fascinating people, however Dr. Hoffman's descriptions lacked depth, and did not go into the Hunzakut's lifestyle in any detail. A tale of the Hoffman's travels to Hunza was interesting, but not necessarily relevant to the title of the book; neither is Dr. Hoffman's own personal views on the human diet. However it is an interesting read, I am now looking for a book that can look at the Hunza people and their life habits in more detail.

I am just 15 years old. This book is the ultimate guide for anyone who wants to become stress free and healthy. It explores vegetarianism and other awsome ways to enhance your health. You will not be disapointed after reading this.

This book is a great resource for those interested in architecture in Los Angeles, but it has MAJOR problems. Not only are the maps inaccurate about 50% of the time (wrong intersection, wrong place along a street, or just plain wrong), but I have also found several listings for which the street address is wrong, including one for which the wrong street name is given. I have also searched for buildings only to realize that they have been demolished. While Los Angeles has gone through a lot of changes in the last few years, several of the buildings on question were demolished before this edition came out. So if you going to use this book to discover architecturally significant buildings, bring along a good map, a great sense of direction and allow plenty of time, you're going to need all of those to overcome the mistakes made by the authors.

If Amazon won't do a search, check out William Stout Architectural Books at 804 Montgomery St., San Francisco, CA 94133. tel 415/391-6757; fax 415/989-2341. I'm about to take an afternoon constitutional over there, enjoy the sunshine and mild breezes, schmooze with Bill Stout for a bit, and leave with book in hand and a smile on my face. Meanwhile, I'll be supporting one of the finest architectural bookstores in the world. Happy reading.

this is a unique, one-of-a-kind guide to l.a. architecture, from the 20s (maybe earlier) to the 60s or 70s. pictures, addresses, etc. if anyone has a copy, i'll buy it. i can't find it anywhere and apparently, amazon won't do a search for it.

When I picked this up, I thought: hey, why not two bios for the effort of one? Why not indeed: you can't delve deeply enough into these two substantial and complex lives in this context. It is way way too ambitious to think you could. While you do get many of the factual basics, which were indeed interesting, neither of these past Presidents comes alive.

"John Milton Cooper...blends these contrasting and kindred elements into a masterful portrait of two of our most intriguing presidents," David Kennedy in the New York Times Book Review, November 20 1983. TR and Wilson are often considered to be the same, especially in the in the domestic realm. The New Freedom was simply an extension of New Nationalism. But Cooper espouses the differences through analysis of both important domestic debates and the politics of war and internationalism. For anyone interested in studying Roosevelt, Wilson, and the Progressive era this book is an important read.

This is a great work of scholarship dealing with two of the most important figures of the early 20th century. Cooper is able to bring out the differences in the approaches that both men had in setting the US political agenda in the early 20th century. Cooper is always a great treat to read. I must say that the title is somewhat interesting. When looking at Roosevelt or Wilson who is in fact the warrior and who the priest?

I find this edition impossible for classroom use and, after this semester, I will not use it again. I wish the venerable Hughes edition was available and affordable: somebody should reissue it if it is going out of print, as it remains the better textbook.

Here are my complaints:

*The prose is riddled with what seem to me to be small typos--I'm not talking about orginal spelling, but about things like "buy" for "but" (p. 937) and so on. There is one of these every 2-3 pages on average, and this is just too many.

*Some of the notes seem designed not to assist undergraduate readers but to demonstrate the editor's grasp of secondary scholarship. Why else would a note to _Comus_ direct readers to Leah Marcus and NOT also offer succinct remarks about the controversy surrounding Sports and mirth? What good is a note like that to the average undergraduate reader?

*The notes are so frequently about minor textual issues--the kind of thing that can go in an appendix and that undergrads are unlikely to care about--that students after a while stop looking at them altogether. That does not help anybody.

*The notes--especially to the prose--do not supply anything like the kind of necessary information that any classroom text should provide. This text does not identify the scriptural passages Milton cites, etc. For example, when Milton refers to a "covnant" in Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and/or The Readie and Easie Way, students need a note about The Solemn League and Covenant, but there is no such thing.

This up-to-date edition of Milton's complete poetry and major prose fills the urgent need for a successor to the venerable student's edition Merritt Hughes prepared half a century ago (now, alas, out of print).

One outstanding virtue of the Riverside Milton is its editor, Roy Flannagan. Flannagan is remarkably responsive to readers' comments, which he promises to take into account in the preparation of future editions (the first of which is said to be in press as of this writing). Unfortunately, a revised edition of the book is instantly needed. In its first printing, the Riverside Milton is badly marred by the absence of a table of contents to the poems and of indices to titles and first lines. Without these helps, it is impossible to find the shorter pieces without a considerable amount of page-turning--and difficult to justify giving the book more than three stars.

Some will be delighted to find that Flannagan has mixed textual notes with substantive ones at the bottom of the page; others (including, I suspect, most undergraduates) will find the mixture irritating, and will resent all the extra head-bobbing between text and annotations. Unexceptionable, I believe, is Flannagan's decision to preserve Milton's 17th-century spelling and punctuation, which greatly facilitates scanning the lines and reading them aloud.

As for the substance of the substantive notes, I believe it generally to be sound, though a handful of glosses seem far fetched and little worth. For example, in commenting upon how "Smiles . . . love to live in dimple sleek" ("L'Allegro," lines 28-30), Flannagan tells us that "Smiles do live in dimples, and dimples live in smooth (youthful) or sleek and plump faces. Also, a personified Smile lives in a dimple the way that a fairy in Midsummer Night's Dream may live in a flower."

As it now stands, the Riverside Milton is a work more of promise than of perfection. Those interested in purchasing the text should wait until the second printing is available, since it will contain the table of contents needed for the book to be truly usable.

Flannagan's update of Hughes is a trailblazing piece of editorial history, one written, formatted, finalized, and agonized over almost exclusively by the author in his home study, and provided as camera-ready copy in short order to a publisher whose timelines were, to put it mildly, ambitious.

As such, it carries all of the idiosyncratic flaws of any new approach to an old methodology, but with a decidedly cutting-edge twist: Prof. Flannagan makes the first attempt I'm aware of in scholarly publication to engage the reader interactively in improvement of the product, in that the Introduction provides the editor's e-mail address, and asks the reader to submit questions/comments/suggestions directly to the source, as he or she sees fit.

Prof. Flannagan has as a result already made a number of positive changes to an edition whose aim is not to dazzle the accomplished Milton scholar with its editor's erudition (Fowler's achievement enjoys that reputation unchallenged), but to entice and intrigue and support and encourage the relative newcomer to Milton studies. I am aware that The Riverside Milton is evolving and growing and reaching an even greater level of refinement and usefulness even as I write this review, becoming, not all things to all people, but the teaching and learning tool of its audience's desire. I too have a 30-year old copy of Hughes (as do most competent Milton scholars "of a certain age"), well-worn and frequently consulted . . . with the Riverside Milton at its side.

There are some serious people portrayed in this collection. And some of these rabbis are both well known and rightfully respected. But the emphasis in this tasteless and pretentious coffee-table production is on the off-beat, the publicity-seeking, the "with-it." The photographs are posed productions -- not a grab-shot in the book. More often than not these portraits convey much more megalomania and narcissism than sirituality. Sorry.

Spiritual Transcendentalism in the New Millennium is a transcendental philosophy by enlightened spiritualists who apply pure logic and reasoning to support the philosophy of the existence of a superior progressive unified spiritual intelligence (God/Allah) instead of interpreting their inspirations with minds that have been predisposed to subconscious conditioning of a Spiritual Existence that necessitates a dominant spiritual presence. Spiritual Transcendentalists have a goal of bringing rationality, logic and common sense into present day religious beliefs.

...

WOW... Now you can not only have a rabbi over for coffee, but have a coffee table book of Rabbis! But you know what?? This is FABULOUS. Better than Rebbe trading cards. RABBIS is a unique book about leaders in modern Judaism in Italy, Israel, Spain, Europe and North America. It features portraits of rabbis and essays in their own words. This can be a drawback, since some rabbis discuss their lives and roles, while others shep, well not nachas, but their own agendas. Will you love them all?? Of course not. That's why every two Jews have three shuls. Sometimes those who minister in the trenches are a little (or a lot) peculiar... but there are different strokes (and rabbis) for different folks. They all serve their communities' needs, some large, some very small. Will your rabbi be envious if s/he wasn't included? Probably. The RABBIS span from Alper (a comedian/rabbi) to Zecher and Zecher. There is a Sephardic "Angel" and a Kfar Chabad "Ashkenazi." Rabbi Black is a singing cowboy in Albuquerque, while Rabbi Brooks ministers to African American Jews. Rabbi Yosef Hadana, Chief Rabbi of Ethiopian Jews appears, as does Yitz Greenberg and Lynn Gottlieb. The cover is adorned by Rahamim Banin, a fundraising, kosher restaurateur and Chabad rabbi in Venice, Italy. He is captured in a gondola, while the camera captured Rabbi Paltiel with his very pregnant wife before a large pic of their Rebbe. There are Borchardt of Agudath Israel and Borowitz of HUC; Hartman of Jerusalem and Hausman of Meah Shearim. There are Balfour Brickner and Rachel Cowan of NYC, and Geller and Eger of California. Rabbi Goldstein is in his National Guard uniform, Garborcheik in his IDF uniform, Kass in his NYPD suit, and Potasnik in his FDNY garb. Rabbi Dorff is photographed from a hospital bed. Buchdahl, a Korean American rabbi in Scarsdale writes an excellent essay of discovery, as does Rabbi Tsuruoka. There are Tokayer and Waskow; and Simkha Weintraub is pictured as truly a man of the "cloth." An unshy Tunishy follows a surfing Shifren; while father and son, and father and daughter teams of Hirsch's, Marmur's, Kreitman's, Schneier's, and Schindler's appear. Rabbis Matalon and Bronstein are captured in debate, and Saperstein is captured on Capitol Hill; Menticoff is jogging, while Niles Goldstein is photographed in his martial arts attire on a Manhattan rooftop with a WTC tower in the background. Kleinbaum and Kolodny precede Labeau and Maya Leibovich, while Schorsch follows Rackman and Rozenberg. Upon closer inspection, the photos reveal secrets, whether it is a "770" here, a book "title" there, or a chosen background. Truly an enjoyable look at contemporary Jewish spiritual leaders.

This Italian saga captures the beauty, suffering, hope and despair of life that we all know at some level, steeped in the rich, cultural tradition that to this day, reflects the lust for life and whose roots touch the very soul of the human condition.

Since Italian stories are popular these days,(considering the Sopranos) this book should do well if people can find out about it. I felt both anger and pity for the heroine, sympathy for the hero. Good descriptions of New York in the twenties and thirties. If this story is only half-true, it's an amazing tale, a very bittersweet romance.

Two years ago, I was lucky enough to have a chance to read the author's first draft of this novel and couldn't put it down. Descriptions of Italy's countryside villas and seaside warehouses are vivid enough to smell. Character situations are gripping and character developments have all the anxiety and frustration of real life. I can hardly stand the wait for my first hardcover version to arrive.

I Read The Mekong as part of an intensive preperation for a trip to Southeast Asia this summer. It is a decent book with some interesting information about exploration in Cambodia and Laos.

The book starts off a little slow but gets much better as it tells the stories of explorers from Europe attempting to navigate the Mekong River. I had never heard of some of these guys and there stories were very interesting.

However, I was surprized that the stories were mostly about Laos and Cambodia and not much was written about Vietnam.

I was also surprized at how light the chapters dealing with the war in IndoChina and their aftermaths were. He never goes into deep detail about anything. What he writes about is interesting but it never gets into anything beyond the surface. I understand this is not a book about the war, but on the otherhand he does not reveal enough of his own experiences to make this fully a travel book.

I feel the book gets muddled again towards the end while discussing the impacts of building dams along the Mekong. The author repeats himself quite a bit at this point. I also felt his conclusions were a little weak, again not really revealing anything

The bottom line on the book is this: it is interesting in parts and is decent enough reading. But I do not recommend dropping everything and reading it. It is not horrible, but at the same time it is not THE book on Southeast Asia.

These are the reflections of a man who had studied this powerful river for the last 40 years.

The river ran through six countries and had seen civilizations emerge and disappear. It had also seen revolution, war, pollution, and destruction. Countries in the upper Mekong liked to dam the river to harness electricity while people in the lower part of the river need its water for agriculture and for its fish. Building dams in the upper Mekong could affect the ecology in the lower Mekong delta. The balance of these antagonistic goals could only be solved if the governments involved were more considerate to each other.

No one could tell the history of the Mekong better than the author.

you like adventure ,you like exploration you like travel ? this book is for you .