I regret there was never more recorded history on Harriett Tubman. Her bravery, and heroism are awe inspiring. She risked her life 19 times, to save her people, and bring them to Canada, for Canada was the end of the Undergound Railroad.

Mrs. Tubman serves as a true American Hero, that went far beyond and above, what the vast majority of us would do.

I take my hat off to you, Mrs Tubman. God Bless you.

I didn't learn much by reading the book, and the recipes were rather useless for me (a strict vegetarian), but it has been nevertheless an enjoyable read (or rather browse) for an afternoon.

1> The massive, reference-kind. Containing not just recipies, but info on how to buy an avacodo, the difference between a pinch and a dash, seventy five different things you can do with garlic, etc. For me, these books are useful, but they take all of the fun out of cooking. Worse, they don't encourage experimentation

2> The regional or course-specific kind. You know, books just about chocolate or cajun or brunch. Again, nice to have (especially if you're marrying someone Italian and you happen to be Jamacian... or something like that), but a little too specific for every day use.

3> The book that tries to do a good bit of the above, but focuses more on stoking your enthusiasm, your experimentation, and your built in love of food (you know you have one).

Jack's Skillet is fixed squarely in category number three. This slim book offers 50-odd chapters on every course or occasion or meal that you might come across in a year. Family get-togethers, Easter dinners, oysters, miles of chicken dishes, homemade pizza, shortcake, salads, barbeque, soups, blackberry pies, coffee, margaritas, biscuits, camping, meat loaf, cake and even home made crackers ("more convenient than going to the store").

Each chapter reads like an ode to the food and the situation it's being prepared in. The "flavor text" is entertainment in and of itself. When the time comes for the recipies at then end of each chapter, you're already drooling.

The recipies themselves are straightforward. Jack takes you through them in prose, then again in regular recipe form. The recipies avoid the banal of the over-simple and complex ornate-ness of the caterer. This is home cooking.

While there's a fair amount of regional pride from Jack (who's lived in Mississippi, Arkansas and New Mexico), Jack makes a strong effort to avoid limiting his scope and pulls recipies from all over.

Experimentation is encouraged and the reader is given a nice framework to experiment in.

In short, this is a book that encourages cooking. It gives the reader the enthusiasm that one only gets from a well-written cookbook; not just a book with good recipies. Pick it up!

It's somewhat ironic that someone as plain-spoken and hard-headed as Old Gimlet Eye would have a book written about him by an intellectual like Dr. Schmidt, but it says a lot about the relevance of Butler, his life in the Marines and in politics.

The book displays how Butler served as both a Marine in endless campaigns for the United States, and how he later came, not to renounce the military or the Marines, but the use of US Military forces overseas as, what he believed them to be, tools of Big Business, and not serving in either the interest of the United States Constitution or its citizens.

This book lead me to Butler's own small book "War is a Racket," which was highly influential in my own opinions about use of military force outside our country's borders. Butler would never consider himself an intellectual, but he had heaps of common sense - a quality which is sometimes lacking from those with sky-high IQs. Marines are sworn to the duty of protecting the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and they take this duty to heart. Once Butler realized that some of his fighting may not have served this interest, he became a very politically charged and controversial figure and speaker. How the hell could the former Commandant of the United States Marine Corps declare himself against war? Well, he didn't go against war, but advocated the prudent use of our military strength in the defense of the homeland. Sometimes he went a little far in supporting his points, but his intentions - to look out for both our country and those who serve it - are admirable traits in any career politician or general (there's little difference between the two once someone picks up that first star).

The other things you'll pick up from this book are that Butler was one tough son-of-a-gun. He's one of the most fearless fighting men this country has ever had. I hope they kept some DNA from this guy so we can clone him enough times to fill the manpower requirements of at least one Marine Expeditionary Unit.

I get the feeling that the author admired Butler's political career more than his military one. But, he successfully shows how Butler's intellect benefits from civilian life. In Butler's own book he said that, as a military man, he didn't have the capacity to question the ethics or motivations of his missions overseas. This is true, as the military's communal, self-sufficient environment isn't good for expanding one's intellectual sphere. Anyway, this is a good book about an American legend.

-- JJ Timmins

I am so happy I found something so simple with so much common sense to give to my Nephew, and at so little cost. This book in my opinion is priceless and a must have tool for success.

Rick T Oregon

Thanks, Ron!

Sincerely,

William at Headstart4@aol.com

"Cymbeline" is, then, completely nuts, but it manages also to be very moving. Quentin Tarantino once described his method as "placing genre characters in real-life situations" - Shakespeare pulls off the far more rewarding trick of placing realistic characters in genre situations. Kicking off with one of the most brazen bits of expository dialogue he ever created, not even bothering to give the two lords who have to explain the back story an ounce of personality, Shakespeare quickly recovers full control and races through his long, complex and deeply implausible narrative at a headlong pace. The play is outrageously theatrical, and yet intensely observed. Imogen's reaction on reading her husband's false accusation of her infidelity is a riveting mixture of hurt and anger; she goes through as much tragedy as a Juliet, yet is less inclined to buckle and snap under the pressure. When she wakes up next to a headless body that she believes to be her husband, her aria of grief is one of the finest WS ever wrote. No less impressive is her plucky determination to get on with her life, rather than follow her hubby into the grave.

Posthumus, the hubby in question, is made of less attractive stuff, but when he comes to believe that Imogen is dead, as he ordered (this play is full of people getting things wrong and suffering for it), he rejects his earlier jealousy and starts to redeem himself a tad. There's a vicious misogyny near the heart of this play, as Shakespeare biographer Park Honan observed, kept in balance by a hatred of violence against women. The oafish prince Cloten, who lusts after Imogen, is a truly repellent piece of work, without even the intelligence of Iago or the horrified panic of Macbeth; his plan to kill Posthumus and rape Imogen before her husband's body is just about as squalid and vindictive as we expect of this louse, and when a long-lost son of the king (don't even _ask_) lops Cloten's head off, there are cheers all round.

Shakespeare sends himself up all through "Cymbeline". I wonder if the almost ludicrously informative opening exposition scene isn't a bit of a gag on his part, but when a tired and angry Posthumus breaks into rhyming couplets, then catches himself and observes "You have put me into rhyme", we know that Shakespeare is having us on a little. Likewise, the final scene, when all is resolved, goes totally over the top in its piling-on "But-what-of-such-and-such?" and "My-Lord-I-forgot-to-mention" moments.

Yet the moments of terror and pity are deep enough to make the jokiness feel truly earned. When Imogen is laid to rest and her adoptive brothers recite "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" over her body, it's as affecting as any moment in the canon. That she isn't actually dead, we don't find out until a few moments later, but it's still a great moment.

Playful, confusing, enigmatic, funny and shot through with a frightening darkness, this is another top job by the Stratford boy. Well done.

However, what keeps this book from being a 5 star knock out is it's stunning lack of future premonitions that were prevalent in the earlier edition. Leaving some of those key elements up to the previous book to cover was bad form on the writers part and it's exclusion kills much of the depth the original DA book had.

Ending summary:

The good: New information and new spins on the clans, roads, and disciplines. Compelling artwork and layouts.

The bad: The way the previous book was largely written off. Key elements from the old book would have enhanced this DA product immensely. It wouldn't have hurt to have some definative "set in stone" issues resolved like the origins of the Tremere (hinted at being servants to the Tzmisce) and the final fate of the Cappadocians. While White Wolf is known for their contradictory storylines and comments within their own books, at least previous books took a stance. The notable lack thereof in this one is fairly glaring.

All in all though, a top notch book. A definate replacement to it's predessesor. Just don't throw the old book away as the two can work well together in a main book/companion type of role.

It incorporates the best changes from Vampire the Masquerade since that title was re-edited several years ago and expands upon it. The vampires in Dark Ages have much more potential than those in the Gothic Punk setting: you can choose from several viable moral systems rather than be restricted to one. Vampires are more powerful since disciplines can be brought up to six rather than five. The Dark Ages feel is much better represented here than in the previous Vampire: the Dark Ages book, and the artwork is superb.

I was a big fan of the latest edition of Vampire: the Masquerade, but I have to admit that I think that title has been topped by the Dark Ages: Vampire core book. It remains to be seen whether the supporting books to follow will be as good.

COFFIN is filled with scattered literary illusions for which a high school knowledge of English should provide adequate background, including references to Oxford and Lewis Carroll and black holes as well as drugs and Sherlock Holmes.

The setting for COFFIN is not as "British" as that found in books by P.D. James or Minette Walters where one can expect minute geographic details. In fact, the background for COFFIN puts me in mind of the Dalziel and Pascoe series--vaguly familiar but you would not be able to find it on a 7.5" map.

The English in COFFIN is British and Butler has a wry sense of humor, but I enjoy the British sense of humor and am familiar with their terminology so I had no problem. If you know what buggery is you won't either. In fact, the strength of Butler's writing lies in the ironic thoughts of her lead character Coffin (and his dog Augustus, i.e. Gus) for whom he thinks.

The plot of A GRAVE COFFIN involves two tangentially related cases. The first case involves the manufacture and sale of pharmaceuticals, in this instance not illegal drugs for a change but facsimiles of patented drugs that not only rip-off the patent holders but endanger the consumer. The second tale is grisley as it involves the sexual abuse, mutilation and deaths of four boys around age 10.

Butler does a good job of laying out her crimes, leading her detectives onward with clues, and tying up most of the loose ends. Although she is dealing with terrible murders, she does not dwell on the graphic aspects any more than necessary to futher her storyline. In other words, her descriptions of the mutilated corpses are not sensational.

Her cops engage in mostly realistic police work (not an impulsive lone dog in the bunch) although Butler finesses the detailed forensics explanations. Her focus is on the main characters and the behaviour and motivations of suspects. She uses the backdrop of the domestic life of Inspector Coffin and his actress wife Stella and their little Peke Gus. If you enjoy the company of dogs you might enjoy Dectective Coffin and his fluffy white canine companion who manages to become very dirty at times.

This was my first Inspector Coffin mystery and I found it easy to read without having read the earlier books in Butler's series. I'll read others but the series won't go to the top of my list, not because Butler isn't good but because I have so much else to read. I'm still trying to work my way though Dalziel and Pascoe and Janet Evanovich's 1-2-3-4-5-6 series. I bought the hard cover of A GRAVE COFFIN but you might wait and buy the paperback. This is exactly the kind of book to take on a 6-7 hour flight and toss out at the end of your journey.

Commander Coffin is faced with the daunting task of having to solve two cases at the same time. The first is a case involving four young boys that went missing from their private school. The second is a case that Coffin is dragged into involving underground pharmaceuticals and apparent crooked cops.

Coffin is a good Commander as well as a detective. Coffin immediately gets on with the task of solving both cases and in the process becomes the target for murder. Who is behind the disappearance of the boys? Is there a crooked cop on the force? Where is the fake medicine coming from? Join Comander Coffin as he searches for the answers.