If you're reading this and you haven't read 'The Pelopponesian War" by Thucydides, stop it, drop it and go get that book. "A History of my Times," more appropriately and originally titled, "Hellenica," is the continuation and final conclusion to the "The Pelopponesian War", a history begun by Thucydides. You know a book is going to be bad, when in the introduction, the translator consistently says, "While not very good..." "Although seemingly flat...", "While his other works shine, this lacks..." If you have read "The Pelopponesian War," you are obligated to read this one, as Thucydides leaves the war unfinished midsentence. While I understand that some of Xenophon's works such as his war journals and such are excellent, swashbuckling reads. His "Hellenica" lacks the grace and inquisitive fire that Thucydides work, "The Pelopponesian War" did. It is a flat, dull read, only rewarding because it tightly ties the loose ends in "The Pelopponesian War." Also Xenophon is a staunch Spartan supporter and tends to ignore Athen's resurgence into power.

Rex Warner's translation of Xenophon's "Hellenica" is quite enjoyable. However, the problem lies with Xenophon's writing. Allegedly a continuation of Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War, it is really more of a memoir recounting Spartan triumphs and failures during the period of 400 to 365 BC. Indeed, it should be regarded mainly as Xenophon's apologia on behalf of his Spartan patron, the king Agesilaus. As such it is often plodding reading. It is certainly not as riveting as Xenophon's "Anabasis". Yet those interested in Greek history during this time may find it rewarding.

Xenephon, one of the most interesting figures to come down to us, continues the Peloponesian war (431-404/3) of Thucydides. He covers the last 6-7 years of the war, and some of the history thereafter. If you read Thucydides, you've got to read this book as well. A pretty good translation too!

The book name was the adventures of "Benny and Watch".
I think this book would be good for other people to read but it was a mystery story and I don't like mystery stories.

The name of My book is The adventures of Benny watch
The children's Dad died and they were scared of their Grandpa. This is a sad and happy story.

In this first book in the series, you meet Benny, Henry, Jessie and Violet, four children whose parents have died and have no where to go. They find an abandoned boxcar and call it home. The end is more surprising than you can imagine.

The book though comprehensive is outdated in a world of online interactivity. Blurry photos in black & white do not allow the detail required for today's collector to come through. The book also expires each year and must be repurchased. 2 Thumbs DOWN! A better choice would be the NEW Crystal Collectors Register by author Sue Bilich. This Full-Color reference guide is more detailed, updatable and very informative. Excellent quality! This is the book collectors have been waiting for and will finally put the Warner Guides where they belong. In the TRASH !

Warner's book is still the most useful companion for the Swarovski collector on the market. However, the pictures are poor (and only black and white), there are a host of page errors in the index, and there is no index by product number. No prices are given for the European editions, although clearly they could be found from Swarovki's Austrian price list. In addition, the text is renewed each year so to stay upto date it is necessary to buy a new copy yearly. In the era of the internet it should be possible to get updates on-line (particularly as Swarovski's year 2000 new products are not even in the 2000 edition). Hopefully competition is on the way.

I have been looking for just such a book for a long time and no one seemed to know of anything like it. The book was found in a small Swarovski shop in Branson Missouri. I knew when I started to look at it, it was THE book i've been looking for! Wish ther was a pocket version like the Beanie Babies have.Can't wait to get started on our inventory

The authors' primary goal is the rehabilitation of the Royal Australian Air Force pilot who sighted and reported the Japanese force enroute to the invasion area at Guadalcanal. The pilot has been falsely vilified, accused of delaying his report until returning to base, and many accounts even manufacture a spurious tea break taken before bothering to mention his sighting. To this end the Warners succeed most convincingly, however from that point they bog down. Unable or incapable of accepting the thesis that bureaucratic inertia, service rivalry, faulty intelligence evaluation, and most of all complacency lead to this report's significance being missed, they go on to hint at shadowy conspiracies, during and after the disastrous battle. Eventually one gets tired of the sinister hysteria and expects references to the grassy knoll and Area 51 to crop up. Who planned and carried out this weird conspiracy (hint: the hatchet man's initials are S. E. M, and he was a Rear Admiral), and to what end aside from the discrediting of an RAAF reconnaissance pilot? The fact is that mistakes are made in all areas of human endeavor, and in wartime such blunders cost lives and affect the destiny of nations. A far better work on the subject is Commodore Loxton's The Shame of Savo, which exhaustively organizes and reconciles track charts and battle reports and does reach a startling and uncomfortable, yet compelling, conclusion about the battle, in particular the likely true fate of HMAS Canberra.

Having read the previous review of this book I only wish to say that I felt this book was well presented and researched. Only the final three chapters out of 17 cover in detail why this disaster happened. Most of the book deals with the lead up to the battle and what happened during the battle. I have no problems with the authors trying to present facts that show that the RAAF crew flying the Hudson were not to blame. Isn't it about time that they got a fair shake and their reputations rehabilitated?

How many other authors have continued presenting this incident as the main cause for the allied defeat when in reality it was numerous other little things that combined to cause the disaster. I also agree with the previous reviewer in relation to another great book on this battle 'The Shame of Savo' written by Bruce Loxton and Chris Coulthard-Clark.

Overall 'Disaster in the Pacific' was a good book to read and I found it well researched and presented.

As the title promises, this book contains fast, easy and accurate router jigs. They are good, very good. However, to get there one has to contend with a mish-mash of colloquial American and incomprehensible illustrations.

Let's consider the second jig as an example (Chapter 4). There are two clear photographs showing the whole jig, many other small unclear ones of small portions of it, five large diagrams showing portions of it, and two nice perspective drawings illustrating the whole jig. The clear photographs, it eventually dawns, show the jig lying upside-down and with a shape different from that shown in all the drawings. The workpiece is in a different position in every illustration (and is magically without any tearout). Just to confuse thing further, there is a color photograph of the same jig on the cover - it is printed the wrong way around. It took me, an architect of 45 years experience and lots of woodwork behind me, more than two hours to unravel the mess. One should know that this complexity cosists of only three fixed boards an one sliding part! Whatever became of ordinary orthographic drawings that have served architects and engineers well since the middle ages?

Authors and publishers should realize that books sold on the WWW will be bought by many readers who will navigate 'standard' English with difficulty and only with the help of a dictionary. The kind of home-brew language used in this book will be completely unintelligible to them. Bismarck was right when he said that words are used to conceal intent.

To summarize, this book is a broken Chinese puzzle box. It will take a long time to open but if you succeed, a diamond awaits inside. I would strongly strongly recommend recommend buying Ian Kirby's excellent THE ACCURATE ROUTER as a companion to this one.

This book is mistitled. Mr.Warner seems to be expert in his field, however I'dcall this ADVANCED JIGS FOR THE EXPERT WOOD WORKER.I have read a dozen books on wood techniques, and itwill be many months beforeI figure out some of thediagrams and terminologyused in this tome.

I use this book for one reason. If I find a custom knife I am interested it I use the directory in the book to find out where the maker lives, their contact info and price range. That alone is worth the price of the book though Ken could improve upon it by providing page numbers in the directory that would show you examples of a maker's work instead of flipping through the book trying to find them. I would recommend for next year Ken try to get at least one photo per maker.

This book is a review of trends happening in the past year for the cutlery enthusiast. Pictures are B&W but the paper this book uses is so-so.

This particular issue lacks the maker photo index and is marred with misspellings. Also pictures were overlayed on each other which makes seeing some of these fine handmade knives difficult. Articles are informative.

Based on Bernard Levine's review of Knives Digest 1, I thought I would be getting a good knife book. What a disappointment. From cover to cover, Knives Digest 1 is substandard. The paper is the lowest quality newsprint I have ever seen in a "book." Photo reproduction is terrible and the design, especially the cover, must have been done by an unpaid intern. As for the color photos Mr. Levine touted; if you can't put color pictures on good paper, leave them out. Sure, this book is cheaper than other knife books, but in this case you don't even get what you pay for. It's clear that Mr. Levine doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to knife books.

Ken Warner edited 20 installments of the DBI Knives Annual (Knives 81 through Knives 2000). But DBI Books got bought out 3 years ago, and the new owners put a stop to all innovations and improvements. So Ken has now gone out on his own, in partnership with Bruce Voyles, and they have published the first all new knife book of the new millenium -- KNIVES DIGEST 1. I just got my copy, and the most obvious difference is that it is a lot bigger than previous editions of the older title. It has more articles, more directory listings, and more pictures -- and for the first time it has dozens of color photos inside the book. The all new articles cover a wide range of knife topics, antique and modern. The book has an all new Yellow Pages section, with many more categories of listings than before, along with the most complete collection ever published of names, adddresses, and phone numbers of just about everyone connected with custom knifemaking and with the factory cutlery industry. And even though the books is bigger, the cover price is lower -- just $19.95.

I like the book The Box Car Children. It was fun to read because they are kids like me that like to play on the coumputer. I also like the book because it was a mystery and I like mysteries . The Boxcar Children was an intesting story because the kids had to spy on a competing computer company that was trying to steal their ideas.

The best part of this book was when the kids went out to eat at a restaurant. They were trying to spy on the lady who worked for the other company. She had been stealing ideas from the kids' company. Once the kids found her at the restaurant, they brought the boss from their company there to see the lady. She had lied about being in a meeting.

The author did a good job describing the setting of the story. The main parts of the story took place at the QuestMaster Company. This is the company the kids got their computer from. Jerermy, the boss of this company, wanted the job to be fun. They had a basketball court outside, a pool table in their gameroom, and they were allowed to bring their pets with them to work. The Company is in an old bulding that looks like it is falling down on the outside but is really nice inside. The main conflict of this story was between two computer companies. A competitor was trying to steal the "Ringmaster II" game from the QuestMaster Company. An employee betrayed the QuestMaster Company by stealing the disk for the competitor.

When Grandfather buys Ringmaster, a CD- Rom, the Alden's have loved to play it. When Grandfather meets the owner of the company, QuestMaster, the Alden's get to test out Ringmaster 2! But soon, the computer is making real places on the screen and Andy, someone who is trying to be nice, is always where the Alden's are. There is a mysterious character named Nadje, who the Alden's think is Jane Driver, a girl who works at QuestMaster, and acts very mysterious. Then, Ned Porter, is always mysterious. Can the Alden's solve this mystery before Ringmaster 2 is sent to stores?

The biggest thing that bothered me about this book was that why a person would sew stolen jewels on a skating costume that was in plain sight of everyone. Children like the Aldens aren't smarter than grown-up dectectives. This book was really AWFUL!!

This is a great mystery. The diamonds are in the place you least expect. Two people get engaged in this book too. One of the characters is really funny. This is a good book if you like mysteries.