If you've ever wondered which Major League team has the longest consecutive streak of attracting at least 1,000,000 people per year at home, (the Dodgers) this book is for you. Or if you want to know how many soldiers were killed in Korea or who consumes mor vitamins, men or women, this book is for you. As a matter of fact, if you want to know any arcane nugget of information, this book is for you. What the authors have done is put together the most interesting compendium of esoteric material it has ever been this reviewer's good fortune to come across. In its nearly 500 pages, you'll learn all about sex, sports, autos, Broadway, movies, and dating. You'll also find out that North Dakota has the lowest incarceration rate in the country at 75 prisoners per 100,000 population. Wash., D.C. is first with 1,578 per 100,000. But you already knew that! Wow your co-workers, amaze your children, annoy your friends! Buy this book and get a leg up on everybody.

A study of family genealogy often explains the present-or in this case, the past.

In late 1700s George, Prince of Wales, was every bit the scandalous Prince Charming, the lover of older, married women that his great-great-great nephew, the Duke of Windsor, was. George, who later became King George IV, even tossed over his mistress, Maria (Perdita) Robinson, in the same manner that the Duke of Windsor got rid of one of his mistresses. He wrote her a letter and refused to take her calls.

In both cases, the princes had a morally upright, dull father who never cheated on his wife. Filial rebellion and serial adultery are long-standing traditions in the British royal family.

In this book Jean Plaidy highlights the life of Perdita Robinson, George IV's first serious fling in a life full of flings. In it, she tells a lot about the character of George IV and sets the stage for "The Sweet Lass of Richmond" and "Indiscretions of the Queen."

Plaidy does us all a service by writing easy to read, entertaining novels about the British monarchy.

Jean Plaidy, also known to her legion of fans as Victoria Holt, was a prolific writer of historical fiction. In this, her ninth volume in her "Queens of England" series of books, she relates the first person narrative of a little known Queen, Catherine of Braganza, who married Charles II of England. Together, they led England during the restoration of the monarchy, after the death of Oliver Cromwell saw the end of Puritan rule in England.

The marriage of Catherine of Braganza, who was from Portugal, to the newly restored King of England, Charles II, was a purely political alliance. Catherine was the daughter of King Juan IV of Portugal, who had previously been known as the Duke of Braganza, a vassal of Spain, as Spain had invaded Portugal in his father's time. When Catherine was five, after sixty years under Spanish rule, her father drove out the Spaniards and assumed his rightful role. His rule was a tenuous one, however, as the only foreign countries who recognized Juan IV as King of Portugal were France and England, who were enemies of Spain, at the time. The Pope, however, under the thumb of the Spaniards, did not, and other countries followed suit.

When Catherine, the Infanta of Portugal, was about eighteen years of age, her father died, leaving her mother, Donna Luiza, Queen Regent, of Portugal, as her brother, Alfonso, was only thirteen years old. Shortly thereafter, in the year 1658, Cromwell died, and within two years, Charles II of England was restored to his throne. Donna Luiza sought the marriage of her daughter, Catherine, to Charles II, as a way of being able to shore up her defenses against the ever pervasive threat of Spanish subjugation. By the time Catherine was twenty two, she was married to the thirty year old King of England.

Catherine was a Catholic Queen in a Protestant England that had never forgotten the cruelties of their last Catholic ruler, Mary Tudor, also known as "Blody Mary", for her excesses againt those of the Protestant faith. Consequently, the English were cool in their reception of Catherine. Moreover, she was married to a King who was a natural philanderer and whose amorous escapades with the beautiful, though notorious, Lady Castlemaine, as well as with the cockney actress, Nell Gwynne, among others, would cause her much heartache.

When Catherine failed to produce an heir, and it became clear that she was barren, there was much political intrigue in hopes that Charles II would divorce her and marry someone with whom he could beget an heir. That the King was capable of doing so was evident from the number of children he begat with his mistresses. Still, this merry monarch, much beloved by his people who viewed his amorous escapades with amusement, refused to discard his faithful and loyal wife, despite the fact that the public reviled her.

The author weaves a compelling, first person narrative of a Queen whose personal travails are little known. Against a backdrop of historical events, political intrigues, and well known personages, her story artfully unfolds, capturing the imagination of the reader. Hers is a story all too familiar. It is the story of a young noblewoman whose personal happines is subjugated to matters of state. Well written, it is a somewhat romaticized account of a life lived in the shadow of political expediency, and its pathos will keep the reader turning the pages.

I've read this book at least 10 times. With it's slightly morbid theme, dark secrets, and romantic twist, this is a great book to read if you just want to "get away from it all." Sometimes books come along and change your view of life - if you're up for a change, try The Pool of St. Branok.

Praguewalks is like having a friend who lives there and knows this wonderful city well giving you a private walking tour. Inside you will find 5 different tours showing you sights that you would never find on your own. Unlike tour books that give you just the highlights of the city, this guide will take you on a pleasant stroll through five different neighborhoods, telling you a bit of history along the way.

You cover little out of the way streets finding a wonderful statue that can only be seen by going around to the back of an embassy. Enjoy reading about the female patron saint of unhappily married women who grew grew a beard to be unattractive to her promised husband. These and other interesting stories are covered as you explore the sights of this beautiful city.

For friends heading to Prague, I tell them this book is a must! Even if you have time to take one of the walking tours, the book is well worth the money. Read all five tours before you go and find the one that is your favorite.

The survival of the British monarchy as a popular institution owes a lot to its queens who were, more often than not, more intelligent than their husbands. Caroline of Ansbach is such a queen. Well-educated and from one of the poorer German principalities, Caroline married into the boorish House of Hanover. It isn't long before she discovered she's caught between a loathsome, vindictive father-in-law, George I, and her not-too-bright and domineering husband, the future George II.

The House of Hanover, newly ascended to the English throne, would not have survived on the personal popularity of its kings. It took the cleverness of Caroline coupled with that of Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, to keep things in balance. Jean Plaidy tells the tale of the reign of George I through the personal trauma of this most remarkable of English Queens.

This is a nice reference book when watching old movies. Not only gives the movies the star was in but a short descriptive narrative of the actor or actress. Too bad it only goes up to 1991.

This Henry Holt reference volume for children includes much of everything you ever wanted to know about world religions, from ancient practices to living faiths through the development of new belief systems, Ganeri takes us on a brightly illustrated journey around the world and through the centuries. Focusing on the major world religions, Ganeri shares the history, practice, and festivals celebrated thousands of years ago and today. Difficult as it is to fit the idea of comparative religion into 69 pages for children, Ganeri has done an admirable job including basic information without crossing the line into controversial areas. She manages to mention the importance of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to Jews and to Muslims, but avoids the bigger political fallout surrounding those beliefs. Ganeri seems to focus Christian information on "high church" beackgrounds, choosing to describe missionary work as that performed by "nuns and monks," and including pictures of robed priests and formal cathedrals to describe how Christians worship. But overall, this is a nice collection of information from a broad background, and the Henry Holt name gives more credence to inclusion in a school library.

As the second in a line of four regents of the South India derived Nayakkar dynasty that succeeded the last of the ethnically Sinhalese kings in 1739, Kirti Sri (1747-1781)'s linguistic heritage was Tamil and his given religious tradition was Hindu Saivism. The last of the ethnically Sinhalese rulers of the Kandyan kingdom Narendra Sinha (1707-1739) had died without a legitimate heir to the throne. His chief queen was a princess from Madurai , a practice that had been inaugurated during the 11th through 13th centuries in the Polonnaruwa period. The first of the Nayakkar kings, crowned Sri Vijaya Rajasinha in 1739 was the brother in law of Narendrasinha. Kirti Sri, the object of this book, was the brother of Sri Vijaya Rajasingha's chief queen, also a Madurai princess. He was only 16 when he was selected and for 4 years the affairs of the kingdom were handled by his regent father. Holt's stated aim in writing this book is to offer an 'interdisciplinary examination of what is meant for various people, lay and monastic, to be Buddhists during the advent of European colonialism and before what has become known as a modern Buddhist religious perspective, qualified by some as 'protestant Buddhism'. To say things simply Holt asks the following question: what was it to be a Buddhist before Olcott and Dharmapala? This slim book of 147 pages is neatly organised into 5 tightly written chapters. Chapter 1 provides the necessary background for a reader unfamiliar with Sri Lankan history and goes on to explain why KS was so concerned about articulating his religious identity as a Buddhist Chapters 2 to 4 which form the heart of the book explain how KS articulated his understanding of Buddhist religious thought and identity through the expression of his religious works especially the temple wall paintings that have become such a remarkable icon and legacy of his reign. In Chapter 3.entitled A Visual Liturgy. Holt argues that KS's efforts directed at the performance of rituals gave form or rather reformed the public articulation of Buddhism. Through an identification and analysis of the religious meanings symbolised in the pictorial art that KS had painted by his highly skilled crafstmen on the walls of many temples he restored, Holt aims at ferreting out the principles and substances of this classic sinhala weltanschauung or world view. For this he looks in detail at temple wall paintings and this is in my view the most interesting section of the book Chapter 4 deals with one other element of the liturgy which is the jataka paintings. The Jatakas relate the anterior life of the Buddha as a Boddhisatta before his final birth as Gotama Siddharta. This chapter that relates what Holt considers were the 4 most important jataka stories is helpful to a reader who wishes to interpret the murals by himself. Chapter 5 is concerned with the necessity for students of religion to focus on materials other than literary texts. On Chapter 6 that attempts to relate KS predicament in the 18thc to the current ethnic conflict I shall not comment except to say that it adds little to the book.

This book is informative, elegantly written and precise and fulfills its aim of capturing in a nutshell the changes that too place in Buddhism, art and politics in the late medieval period and defining what consitutues a Kandyan style of painting. It is far less successful in its attempt at recreating a worldview. KS's world view is reconstructed from an analysis of what he did and proclaimed towards the revival of classical Buddhism. But I feel Holt misses an entire dimension of KS's character..... what I would call the hybrid nature of his cultural being. Indeed how did he live this condition of being born a Nayakkar and having to adopt the customs of the Kandyans for his own survival. The complex personality of the king who was versed enough in the Sinhala language to compose love songs in Sinhala but who until a rebellion was hatched against him continued the practice of annointing himself with ash does not come out in this book. We know for instance that after the rebellion - KNO Dharmadas mentions this point- not only did he give up the practice of annointing ash but he went so far as to ban the use of ash in the preparation of ola leaf manuscripts. Such clues exist and if one were to follow them a more complete and complex personnality would emerge. Even less convincing is Holt's analysis of the worldview of the common people whom he promises in his introduction to draw into the picture. The kings worldview and the people's appear to be interchangeable. Surely the Kings perception was not the same as that of the common man who visited the temples refurbished by the King. This book does not really investigate ways of thinking in 18th c. Sri Lanka. What I feel as a student of history is that Holt has overlooked the fact that the religious worldview of the common people cannot be looked at without relating it to the surrounding world of significance. But these failings apart, for a lay reader, this book has the merit of presenting very briefly many arguments and weaving all the important strands of scholarship on the late Medieval period into a comprehensive and coherent whole. For a more specialised readership, the unanswered questions and the loose ends in this book may open up new avenues of research and interest.

After introducing the medieval period by discussing the fall of Rome, the age of Charlemagne, the Vikings, Plantagenets, Capets, City States of Italy, the rise of the Church and the rise of Russia, the author divides this book into his main themes: 1. Castles, Nobles and Knights; 2. Town and Country; 3. Houses of God; 4. The Secluded Life; and 5. Into Battle. The author covers each of these sections with short essays, beautiful illustrations, gatefolds that picture a sight in its present state and then illustrates the sight as it would appear during the medieval period. This is a well written, beautifully illustrated book, although it is rather short (120 pages).