If only one worthwile thing came from the forst world war (1914-1918) it may have been some of the finest poetry in the english language. Several poets represented here (Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen and others) lost their lives while ironicaly producing their finest works. This fine collection, splendidly arranged and read, gave me in turn feelings of hope, outrage, regret, humor, and resignation. The final work, Laurence Binyon's "For The Fallen" eulogizes the dead and their memory. Although written for the English dead, it serves well as a memorial for all war dead. Set against Elgar's "Nimrod" music, it is moving and emotional.

Jasper's book is one of those books that you are so impressed by you work to memorize and apply in all thinking processes. His discription of existentialism in one's chaotic center of concealed knowledge with how we perceive reality is essential and the foundation behind all thinking in philosophy, science and religion.

Jasper speaks of all thinking within a horizon that can be transcended. All horizons being within a horizon he names "the encompassing," which can be seen in two modes, as all Being in itself, or as all Being within which we are. It is here within which we are, we perceive reality in three ways: by empirical existence, consciousness and spirit. In turn we use reason to formulate, objectify and create absolutes, yet at the same time we need to use our irrational concealed knowledge, that is, the dark ground and center, of all modes, the existenz, to allow our reason to be open and apart from mere intellectual indifference. All demarcations are relative, yet existenz without reason is unrelated to Transcendence. Each without the other loses the genuine continuity of Being, and therefore, the reliability ceases to be authentic.

Reason clarifies our existenz, while our existenz gives content to our reason. Jaspers also goes into the idea of communicating truth, the prioity and limits of ratonal thought and compares the ideas of Nietzsche and Kiergaard. The book is brilliant.

Jasper has convinced me that we move around too often, losing contact with nature and with people in the process. The U.S. would be a better place if we followed his advice.

Our son has always been afraid of snakes - until he read SNAKE CAMP. Now, while he's not exactly a snake charmer yet, he is interested in overcoming his fear of snakes. This is a funny, very clever book that also has a very important message.

This is the Oxford Book of Snobs, and displays the erudition that one has come to expect from that press. Utilizing quotations from a variety of sources (many literary, of the highest quality), it presents a sophisticated view of snobbery that transcends more simplistic sociological and anecdotal books.

There is a clear contrast between the careers and philosophies of Henry VIII's first two and most famous Lord Chancellors, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1473-1530) and Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). It provides one of those rare lessons in history and human conduct that make centuries-old passions living and instructive issues for today. In this dual biography Jasper Ridley explores their lives with the scholarly authority and narrative impetus that have made him one of England's premier biographer-historians.

This is an entertaining look at the lives of Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More. Ridley proposes the scandalous idea that perhaps Wolsey wasn't so bad after all and More wasn't such a sainted fellow - and he argues persuasively in each case. The real value of this book lies in its challenge of conventional history. Wolsey has far too often been painted as a villain, too worldly and vain to be a priest and too foolish to escape the king's wrath. More's tragic death and subsequent canonization have created an unpenetrable aura of goodness about all he said and did before. Ridley's work reveal the humanity in the saint. And the revelation does not lessen More's achievements or courage; they become even more incredible when we realize he was simply a man like any other, determined to live with dignity and strength in an age which often rejected both. And Wolsey is revealed as a pious man whose material acquisitions did not destroy his spirituality (???).

Jasper Ridley, who attended Oxford and the Sorbonne and became a barrister of the Inner Temple, gave up the profession of law in 1952 to become one of England's leading biographer-historians. Some of Ridley's other important books include Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer and John Knox and Garibaldi and The Roundheads and Napoleon III and Eugenie, and his Lord Palmerston won the prestigious James Tait Black award in 1971.

This book originated from 12 radio talks given by Karl Jaspers, right after World War II. It is written in an extremely lucid and direct manner, and it is more of an introduction to the art, or process, of philosophising rather than to philosophy itself as a discipline. In this book existential philosophy, the brand of philosophy so successfuly cultivated by Jaspers, is described, so to speak, "from inside". There is hardly any analysis of philosophical terms, but rather a presentation of the inner process of approach to the metaphysical questions confronting the individual person. Jaspers belongs to the great idealist tradition, initiated by Plato, developed further by the medieval schoolmen, and lastly by Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schelling, Soeren Kirekegaard and others. According to Jaspers the core-meaning of man's identity is his sense of freedom. Freedom is presented as an immediate datum of consciousness, as that part of man's personality which "evades all object knowledge but is always present in him as a potentiality". Irrespective of what is omitted, this book offers a subject-matter of impeccable honesty and undiluted spirituality. This is a great book superbly well written. Also, the translation by Ralph Manheim is quite masterly. It is an out and out example of what every translation should actually be: a representation in another language of the meaning and style of the original text.

Robin Reilly captures the essence of Wedgwood history from its origins to present day. It features beautifull full color pictures of even the rarest Wedgwood treasures. A collectors best friend, making dating and originating unusual pieces easy. A must have for any Wedgwood enthusiast, as well as an essential addition to a collectors library!

This is a great book. There are wonderful rhymes. The drawings are detailed and fun; you can find faces on mountains and in water. There is a frog which hides on every page; looking for the frog and the different things makes this book even better.

The book is fun and happy. It is a terrific bedtime story. Our copy is worn from use and love. This book should be as mandatory children's reading as "Good Night Moon" and "Winnie the Pooh".

Time travel, Neanderthal lawyers, mammoth migrations, Supremely Evil Being hunts, stupid second law of thermodynamics tricks, diabolical corporations bent on retribution, all life on earth reduced to a pink goo, and - of course - Miss Haversham (of Dickens' "Great Expectations") doing her best Mario Andretti through the streets of England can mean only one thing: Thursday Next is back.

Jasper Fforde returns his sassy literary detective of "The Eyre Affair" for a second escapade in "Lost in a Good Book," as she battles enough bad guys to make MI-5 jealous. A special operative tracking malfeasance as it relates to books and lit (in a world that craves Shakespeare more than Spears), Thursday finds herself blackmailed into retreiving a Goliath Corporation enforcer she previously left trapped in Poe's "The Raven." Her new husband erased by the time-traveling ChronoGuards, Thursday winds up stuck in an alternate timeline she can't undo. Add to this the mysterious appearance of an unknown Shakesparean work, throw in a bizarre set of coincidences that seem bent on wiping her out as well , then top it off with her time-hopping fugitive father showing her the end of the world will come in a few weeks unless she can stop it, and our poor heroine is up the Thames without a paddle.

But all is not lost, for Thursday has a new trick up her sleeve: she can jump into books without the aid of her uncle's Prose Portal (from the first book.) Her skill brings the attention of Jurisfiction, a motley assortment of literary figures who are responsible for maintaining the integrity of all written material. Apprenticed to Miss Haversham, she quickly builds her skills to the point that she can even enter into the verboten Poe books, saving the world along the way.

In what can only be described as a whirlwind of a comic sci-fi thriller, "Lost in a Good Book" finds Fforde ratcheting up the tension to unbearable levels. His writing chops are clearly a step up from "The Eyre Affair", but good grief! This book has enough plots, characters, action, and mayhem to be ten books. It's too much; the result being that nearly every scene is clipped in order to fit into its almost four hundred pages. This makes for an outstanding page-turner, but a confusing one to review. It actually lacks the depth of "The Eyre Affair" while - oddly enough - being more satisfying than its predecessor. Thursday has shed some of her Ally McBeal-ness, the villain is less over-the-top, and the author's gears are showing a bit less. The talent has caught up, but Jasper, please take it easy!

In my review of "The Eyre Affair" I commented that the book was "Douglas Adams Lite." Well, "Lost in a Good Book" begins its first page honoring Adams with an in-joke his fans will recognize. For anyone who has read both series, the comparisons with Adams' "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" are impossible to miss, but for those of us dying for that brand of humor and recklessness, "Lost in a Good Book" will definitely assuage the longing.

Enjoy!

For the people that read Foorde's first book of the Thursday next series, Lost in a good book is as imaginative and funny as the first one. We meet again Thursday, who despite saving a classic like Jane Eyre from evil Hades, is subject to the same bureaucracy at work as before. But this time, her struggle with the huge conglomerate, Goliath is more personal.

Fforde is as original as ever. He brings numerous famous and obscure literary characters to life and creates improbable situations with just enough prallel to reality to engage the reader. The reason I give the book 4 starts instead of five is that teh author became too preoccupied with originality and decided to bumdle too many plot lines into the novel. While he manages to resolve all of them, he does ot necessarily manage to interconnect them. After finishing the book, I felt like there were several sub plots that he could have easily left out as they did not contribute to the main line of the story--the argument with the landlord draws for several chapters to lead Thursday on a vampire hunt (completely random, but for an opportunity to describe the "undead"), a lawsuit taking place in Kafka's The Trial (again, a veihicle to demonstrate that Thursday can talk to characters in her head, a capability that she does not use anywhere else in the book), etc. Even the attempt for revenge from Hades' sister seems artificially attached to the novel, without really adding any significance.

Don't get me wrong--the book is awsome. I was just a little peeved that an author that has so much to say and in such a unique way did not exercise a little restraint...

Lost in a Good Book is the next adventure in the saga of Thursday Next, intrepid literary detective. Fforde takes the reader on another exploration of great literature, but makes it accessible even to the readers who haven't really read any of them. This book is an excellent addition to the mythos. It's a fast-paced romp that will leave you smiling and intrigued at the same time.

Fforde takes the world that he created in The Eyre Affair and adds even more to it. In fact, he creates an entire fictional world beneath the "reality" that Thursday lives in. Characters from literature can travel to the real world, or to other books. An entire infrastructure of literary characters is charged with defending literature against evil-doers. The Jurisfiction organization, centered in the Great Library where every book (even books that only potentially existed) is housed, fights against everything from vicious creatures that eat vocabulary to Bowdlerisers, who travel through fiction trying to eliminate obscenity and profanity from it. In her travels, Thursday becomes the apprentice to Miss Havisham, from Great Expectations, a master book-jumper. All of this is in an attempt to learn how to get into "The Raven" and save her husband. Once again, I have to credit Fforde's imagination. There are so many cool concepts in this book that I won't give you any more. It would spoil some of the fun.

Also like the first book, this is a triumph of prose and imagery over character, as most of the characters don't have a lot of depth to them. They are mostly part of the joke, or part of the scenery. Thursday is one exception to this, and Miss Havisham is the other. Havisham is a wonderful character, taking what Dickens created and adding to it. It's very interesting to see Havisham interacting with Pip and Estella as part of the book, and then when the scenes switches to a new chapter and away from her, she becomes even more animated. These characters know that they are characters in a book, they speak their lines and do their bit, and then they go off to live their own life. Every chapter adds more and more to Fforde's world.

One way in which this is different from the first book, however, is that Fforde doesn't concentrate as much in the alternate reality that Thursday lives in. We get an update on how things are going (the Crimean War peace talks, for one thing), but for the most part, everything takes place either in the books themselves, or in the real world but with lots of literary characters bumbling about. For example, Havisham is a hoot when she gets behind the wheel of a car. If you can imagine an 18th century spinster with a lead foot, you will get the picture. It's hilarious to see, and to read about. I constantly found myself marveling at what Fforde was producing, and didn't notice that the characters were kind of plot devices.

However, once again, the writing is wonderful. Fforde has a very smooth style that almost feels literary. It's almost the perfect mix between classic literature and today's fiction. Part of that is helped by the other fictional characters being around (most of them being from classical literature anyway), but a lot of it is the prose itself. The plot is interesting in itself and there are some godawful puns (those are the best kind). Some of the events in the novel seem to come out of left field, but everything ultimately has a good reason for happening, which is nice. A couple of times I groaned at how something was resolved, thinking it looked too much like writer's fiat, but then something else happened that explained exactly why that resolution occurred. Considering how twisty the book can get at times, that's no mean feat.

I greatly enjoyed this novel, though not quite as much as the first. I'm not sure why that is, because it seems just as good as the first one. Maybe I would have liked a little more real-world action. In the first book, I reveled in the scenes like the Rocky Horror Picture Show-style rendition of Richard III. Those sorts of details were missing in this one (though the beginning, when Thursday goes on the talk show, is a complete scream). There were a couple of seemingly useless items. There's no reason that I can see for the mammoths to be around, other than as interesting scenery. In a book that's full of imagery, that's not usually a bad thing, but this time it seemed like they would have a purpose, and then they didn't.

Fforde has shown, yet again, that he is a master at this sort of thing. He uses wonderful language, interesting images, and a great plot. Don't pick up this book for the wonderful characters, though. Fforde concentrates more on making the characters do interesting things than in actually making them interesting themselves. Except for Thursday, of course. She is the ultimate, and I love her to death. You also don't have to be afraid of not having read classic fiction and thus not being able to understand the book. While I'm sure it would be enhanced if you are familiar with it, it's not a necessity to get most of the jokes. All in all, I really felt like I was Lost in a Good Book.