This entertaining and highly readable account of British Naval Brigades not only covers the main operations through the Victorian period but also goes into considerable detail on the organisation, armaments and tactics employed. The term "Naval Brigade" is somewhat deceptive since it was applied to units ranging from a few bluejackets with small arms landed close to the coast to substantial forces, including heavy artillery detachments, operating far inland for significant periods. The earlier part of the book is dominated by the Royal Navy's major commitments ashore in the Crimean and Indian Mutiny campaigns and the later by the equally significant roles in the Boer War and Boxer Uprising. The intervening chapters detail a huge range of operations ranging from landings in Japan to nightmare close combat in the Gold Coast bush, via sometimes ferocious fighting in Zululand, at the Taku Forts, up the Nile and Irawaddy and inland from the Red Sea. The section on the capture of the Suez Canal in 1882 provides an early and indeed near-perfect example of inter-service co-operation. The specialist weaponry carried by many ships of the period to allow projection of power ashore is well detailed. A particularly interesting insight is the extent to which the Navy led the Army in deployment of machine guns in land operations, and skilful handling of Gatlings, Nordenfeldts and Gardners figures prominently in the story. Mr.Brooks has an easy and readable style and the narrative never flags, the more technical sections being skilfully spaced between the chapters covering specific operations. The book is enlivened by extracts from many first-hand accounts of the period, from the lower deck as well as from officers. In summary, this work is an enthralling read for anybody interested in Victorian Naval or Colonial History.

Mr. Brooks has captured all the rich details in this epic account of the Royal Navy and its intrepid sailors and marines. Each section is filled with some amazing tales of courage and clever practices in warfare.
The book is very readable but not for the novice Victorian era reader. There are a great number of terms that many may not understand, but the style of writing allows the reader to follow the various conflicts and the daring sailors as they endure horrible climates, savage battles, disease and some very hostile tribesmen around the globe.
The tactics, personnel, weapons and commanders are laid out making the book very well rounded. I wish the book had been twice the size and hated to see the book end. The author should be commended for fleshing out a little known aspect of the Victorian time period. Check it out

Kirsty Brook's Mad Love is hillarious. Buy a couple and send them to ex-girlfriends with the bits that apply to your own relationships highlighted.

So go on, laugh at the misfortunes of others. It's healthy.

Five stars doesn't do this book justice. How can only 5 stars describe a book that had me rolling around the floor laughing clutching at my sides tears streaming down my face?

Pretty embarrassing as I was reading it on a bus.

Mad Love is Kirsty Brooks' second book, and this time she has collected stories of the strangest things that occur in relationships and dating. What makes this book so good is the way she has taken stories from people of all ages, so you get a good spread of material from the present going back to the 1940's and 50's.

Everyone will love this book. I love it so much I've given at least 3 copies as presents.

Don't go on a date without it.

The Mahabharata is the great national epic of India. It's about 15 times as long as the Bible and, like the Bible, was written by many hands over a period of centuries. Essentially, it tells of the conflict between two royal families, ending in a cataclysmic battle. Jean-Claude Carriere and Peter Brook have attempted to condense it into a (relatively brief) 6 1/2-hour-long play. With what success, I'm not sure. Maybe it works better on the stage. While reading it, the characters are vivid, but they don't leave lasting impressions. As one would expect, the Mahabharata doesn't have a "tight" structure (like, say, the Iliad). The authors/translators have preserved some of this epic sprawl, and that may be part of the problem---at least for a Western reader like myself, who is doubtless missing many of its subtler allusions. Still, in my opinion, the book makes for an entertaining introduction (or pre-introduction?) to classical Indian culture, and I always bring in the Carriere/Brook translation, as enrichment material, when I teach the Indian section of the History of Mathematics.

Oh yes. I guarantee that, once you've read it, you will *never* forget who the slyest animal is. (It's not homo sapiens.)

Jean-Claude Carriere, one of the best screenwriters of all time, wrote this play for the great theater and film director Peter Brook, who translated it himself. Based on the classic poem from India, the longest ever written (it is about fifteen times longer than the Bible), _The Mahabharata: a Play_ was about nine hours long when Brook's company performed it, and adapts the incredibly vast original narrative to deal mainly with the fight for power between two families in an ancient, mythic time: the Pandava, five children of the gods, go against the Kaurava, the hundred sons of a king whose legitimacy is in question, and the greatest and most savage war is near. Carriere's endeavour seems at times a feat of superhuman proportions, for the play condenses everything without forgetting the essentials, and features an enormous array of characters, ranging from the somber and tragic (the orphaned warrior Karna) to the utterly comic (the lecherous general Kitchaka), and several dialogues and monologues of great beauty. Yudhishtira and Duryodhana, leaders of the rival families, represent all men and women, of this time and every other: not totally good nor evil, they both face many moral and ethical pitfalls and not always can win nor return unscathed from their fights. Even if you don't like theater, reading this play, and thus catching at least a glimpse of one of the greatest literary works of mankind, is a unique experience, at the same time shattering and enlightening. As one of the characters could say, if you read carefully, in the end you will be someone else.

This is a collection of three shorter pieces: essays, transcriptions of speeches, etc. The book is well-edited and provides a good insight into the experiences which seem to have motivated Brook to do the kind of ground-breaking he is noted for. However, if you're looking for a single, clear thesis, try a different book.

I highly recommend this book.

This is really an extension of Brook's ideas in "The Empty Space." It is my favorite work of his, as the writing is much simpler and digestable than I am used to, yet it is no less insightful and inspiring.

I feel that anyone who loves theater should read Brook: I always come away from his ideas feeling inspired and invigorated: my mind spinning with countless new possibilities. Thinking both as a director and an actor, I find Brook very useful. Perhaps his best quality is his love of experimentation- of finding what works but being ready to reject it for something better. Brook is an explorer more than a theorist. This collection of essays/speeches is an important aid to understanding where his journeys have taken him in his understanding of what makes good theatre.

French crime writer Manchette's final novel was published in 1981 and now finally appears in English over twenty years later. Unmistakably influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville's brilliant 1967 film "Le Samourai", the story is about Martin, a professional hit man who wants to quit the business and return home to claim his childhood love. However, the mysterious government agency who hires him wants him to do just one last job... Of course this is an old story, and naturally Martin finds it's not so easy to just walk away. Having come from a miserable small town upbringing, he's proven himself in the big bad world and just wants to retire to a quiet beach somewhere with his old girlfriend. But this is the noir world of shattered illusions-as one character puts it, "You're dreaming, there are no more desert islands!" It doesn't take too much reading between the lines to uncover Manchette's larger political metaphor in the story of a kid who hires himself out to do someone else's killing for ten years only to find it's tainted him forever. The book is brutally dark, but if you like the whole nihilist crime thing, it's worth the two hours it takes to read. The lean story unfolds in rapid, flat prose without an ounce of sentimentality and it's not hard to see why Manchette quit writing after this. If your world view is that bleak, there's not a whole lot else to say, is there?

As one reviewer summed it up, this is Dashiel Hammett meets Guy Debord, and it's true; flat, spare prose with a sense of existential nihilism from which there is no escape. Fast, rough, violent reading, told in a matter-of-fact procedural manner. The ending is telegraphed rather obviously, but this is first rate work, and if you're into violent noirs, you should read it. What a film it would make, in the right hands!

This book is essentially the autobiography of Jeffrey Brooks, an advanced zen student and black belt in Okinawan karate who runs a dojo in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is a little hard to figure out what the book is about as it is divided into short chapters with such titles as "ten years of sweat," "the hells" and "maximum killing power." The chapters do not seem to follow any particular sequence and are a combination of autobiographical experience and lecture.

Mr. Brooks is a very learned zen student and is also an accomplished karate teacher. The problem with the book, however, is that if a reader is not particularly familiar with zen Buddhism or karate, its references and descriptions can seem obscure. This obscurity is heightened by Mr. Brooks tendency to use big words that are not familiar to the average person, or at least me.

The title is a give away to the inherent problem: "a practitioner's guide to the alchemy of action." What is the "alchemy of action?" 354 pages do not really answer this question.

On balance, however, this book is highly recommended to someone who wants to read another Buddhist "practice story" which is presented in conjunction with its relationship to the martial arts. Mr. Brooks' explanation of the "karate-do", meaning the way of karate is superb. His explanation of the benefit and purpose of zen training is, as stated before, more obscure.

this book is excellent for just good, fun, and interesting reading, but from a martial arts perspective. when i got this book, i thought it would be mostly about martial arts, not only was i surprised by what i read i was blown away. this story captivates enchanting tales of jeffrey's life while exploring different aspects of martial arts practice and different aspects of life. this book is probably one of my favorite books of all time.

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham asserts that southern black women, through their participation in the National Baptist Convention fostered agency, activism, women's rights and racial dignity during the post-Reconstruction era of Jim Crow. Intrisic to her thesis is that while black women utilized the Baptist church as a support stucture against racism and poverty, they also worked to raise the status of the black race as a whole and black women specifically. One of the most important insights in this book, is an in-depth analyiztion of the feminization of religion. However,while Higginbotham's thesis is stong and engaging, altering the hereto academic focus away from prominent black Baptist activists to a wider, regional phenomenom of group participation, ultimatley her study contains a few theoretical holes. There is little critical analysis of the opposition that black women faced in their endevores, such as the creation the Womens Convention, a subsiderary of the larger National Baptist Convention. Also, there is no sense of the black "masses," consistantly refered to as such, that these women tried to help. "Masses," in this case indicates a monolith rather than an increasingly diversified group of people. Ellaboration on both of these points would have greatly improved the complexity of Higginbotham's study, as well as left the reader a great deal more informed. Over all, Righteous Discontent is a valuable source for anyone seeking information on race, gender and relgion at the turn of the century. Higginbotham's treatment of the subject is tactful and engaging, uncovering a little known but important facet of African American history.

Evelyn Higginbotham shows us that this is not a man's world anymore with her book on the role of women the Black Baptist Church. Her writing is fluid and detaied, and she provides various examples to illustrate her points. This is the definitive text for learning about the roles that the Black Baptist church in African-American society.

The Rush Hour Cook series is a collection of small books that are designed to easily fit into a purse or briefcase without taking up much room. In the "Effortless Entertaining" book you can expect the usual categories of appetizers, main meals, and desserts. One of the requirements for a recipe to make it into the Rush Hour Cook series is that the ingredients must be easy to find in just about any grocery store. So if you plan on preparing something from the book you can drop it into your purse or carry it along and pick up the ingredients on the spot.

Various tips are also scattered throughout the book. At the end there are five days of suggested meals as an example of meal planning and the shopping list that would be needed to prepare all of these meals. These are practical, easy to prepare, and quick recipes that are sure to please at any entertainment function. Not just for entertaining adult friends with things like Chicken with Mushroom-Sherry Sauce but also for entertaining a group of children with recipes like Kids-love-it Casserole. This is a great gift for the novice cook or the person who just wants to make a quick meal and get on to other things.

I heard about this book on the radio and can see why this book has gotten so much press coverage. I love it! You can fit it in your purse and it includes complete grocery lists so you can grab all the groceries you need for a week quickly and easily. I bought the set of 4 and also bought a bunch to use as Chrsitmas presents and they received rave reviews! I think this book is a relief from those huge cookbooks with tons of useless recipes. My family has loved everything I have made so far!

This hardback book was copyrighted in 1941 and has over 800 pages. It is divided into 13 sections. Over 100 authors are featured in this book. Three selections from George Ade's "Fables in Slang", appear here. Booth Tarkington's humorous "Whitey", about two enterprising boys and an old horse is featured. H.L. Mencken's keen observations of life appear in "The Wedding". Mark Twain has numerous selections. Also appearing are works by Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe and Oliver Wendell Holmes. So the topics and authors of this compilation are broad and interesting.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It introduced me to many authors I didn't know about, and it revealed new sides of the ones I did. Mark Twain's criticism of James Fenimore Cooper is worth the price of the book alone.

This book is excellent. The material is presented clearly and concisely. It makes the subject matter accessible and interesting. I used it as the text for a one-semester graduate subject. I completed all of the exercises, so it is well-paced for this kind of study. I started with only an introductory knowledge of group theory, so it is self-contained. The only drawback is that there are no solutions to any of the exercises. If it had this, it would be a perfect bok.

This book has 4 chapters.Chapter1 is about general theory of representations of finite group.Chapter2 is about representation of symmetric groups.chapter3 and 4 are about combinatorial topics and symmetric functions. Though I haven't read all of the book,I highly recommand this book because this book shows us introductive part of representation theory with easy words.I think it is worth to read for all who are to begin the study of representation theory.