John Joiner asks for and, finally receives paper and pen. Sitting down he scribbles, at first, only anger and frustration onto the pages. But, soon the writer in him takes over and he begins the DIARY OF A CURTAIN TWITCHER, recording on the pages, the sequence of events that have put him: Under suspicion as a terrorist. Under lock and key in a military holding cell. Under the supervision of the unsympathetic military police.

John Joiner's deep emotional guilt over his part in the violent death of his fiance Sara, has escalated into a debilitating case of agoraphobia. It has been 3 years since he has been able to step from the confines of his house. Now, with an impressive array of technological equipment and his computers, John lives vicariously through his neighbors. Monitoring their lives and actions, he develops characters and plots for the books he writes as Jack Jenior.

Maria enters his life in a rustle of silk stockings, and from the first moments of frustrating aggravation his rapidly developing feelings and desire for her, begins to change John's life. She becomes fascinated by his equipment and occupation when he notifies the police, foiling a robbery at a neighbors house.

When they uncover a murder plot, John, concerned how his "spying" will be perceived, and convinced the police will never believe them, they decide to investigate on their own and warn the victims.

Andy JW Davie has a strong voice and riveting writing style. The characters in DIARY OF A CURTAIN TWITCHER become alive and real for the reader, pulling you deeper and deeper into the intrique and action. I found myself anxiously turning the pages for the next twist and turn the author weaves into the attention grabbing plot of this MUST READ thriller.

Diary of a Curtain Twitcher is an amazing story by Andy Davie. With twists and turns, it's a thriller at its best. The characters are unforgettable and once you start reading you just can't put it down. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a well written thriller, it's among the best out there.

Andy Davies has written a riviting adventure surrounding author John Joiner. Through the electronic surveilance of his neighbors, Joiner uncover a murder plot. With the aid or hinderance of Maria Coruna, his temporary housekeeper and girlfriend, Joiner reluctantly must face his dibilitating fear to save lives. Davies has written a marvelous story with simplistic mastery to get the hero and heroine into and out of trouble and he does so with plausible situations and humor. Diary of a Curtain Twitcher is my favorite new book of 2000.

Euripides is the dramatist of the irrational. His greatest work, The Bacchae, Medea, Hippolytus, depicts a world in which irrational passions are a powerful and destructive force. In contrast to Aeschylus, whose greatest work - The House of Atreus trilogy - describes the harnessing of irrational forces into civic fabric of the polis and rationalistic worship of the Olympian pantheon, Euripides sees the passions as uncontrollable. Some of the gods, such as Dionysius in The Bacchae and Aphrodite in Hippolytus, appear as the personfication of destructive passions. Many of the human figures in Euripides plays appear unable not only to face the force of these passions, but also unable to recognize the danger represented by the passions. Euripides view is dark but powerful and his works are compelling but dispiriting. The Penguin series of his plays includes translations by Phillip Vellacott. Though most of these translations were produced decades ago, they retain their freshness and immediacy. This set of inexpensive books is an excellent way to experience Euripides.

Is Medea's response merely another example of "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", or are there other factors which make her response unique? Was she "insane" to have killed her children or was it legitimate within the scope of her response? What is so primal, so horrible about a mother killing her children? What role do the gods play in Medea's situation? Is she being punished for her earlier betrayal of her family? Did the Sun God's appearance with Medea at the end of the play indicate that she was vindicated and had divine support in her program of revenge? If the action cannot be satisfactorily explained in terms of the characters of a play in which fate and destiny are present, then the matter is left up to these divine powers. Where does that situate us in our Existential dilemna? The, audience is free to purge its feelings because the gods are controlling the course of the action. How important are the different social values and responses exhibited in the play? Does the play's action turn on cultural differences or more fundamental aspects? Lastly, if it is a "Greek tragedy", is it only Jason's tragedy? Let us not forget his role in all this. It is tragic in that his life ends in despair. What about "bad karma"? Although Jason married a second wife, we saw no indication that he dad any romantic passion for her. It seems to echo his withdrawal of feeling from Medea. The more withdrawn he became, the more passionate was Medea's response. If Jason had exhibited more passion, it might have improved Medea's attitude. His coldness did not justify her actions but made them more understandable. Is it simply greek soap opera or are current soap operas a reflection of passions past and still present. Nothing could justify the actions of Medea but certainly a lot can explain it, or can it?

Vellacott has provided excellent translations and commentaries on four of the plays of Euripedes, including his classic "Medea." They should be required reading of any college student. "Medea" is a study in how unbridled passion can overcome reason and lead to tragedy. This may be particularly pertinent with respect to the ongoing war between Athens and Sparta at the time the play was first presented. Medea, who had helped Jason in his quest, become his wife, and given him two sons, feels betrayed since he is marrying the daughter of the ruler of Corinth. With horrible vengence, she kills the bride and the king and then her two sons. "Hecabe" is a play about the wife of Priam, King of Troy, and the mother of Hector, Paris, Cassandra, and others. At the start of this play, the war between the Greeks and Troy is over and Hecabe is now a slave of Agamemnon. The ghost of Achilles had appeared and demanded a sacrifice over his tomb before the Greeks can set sail for home. They vote to sacrifice Polyxena, Hecabe's young daughter, despite the tears and entreaties of Hecabe. After Polyxena's noble death, Hecabe learns that her last child Polydorus had been murdered by the King of Thrace, Polymestor, to whom Polydorus had been sent for safekeeping. This finally drives Hecabe mad and she seeks vengence for Polydorus's death. Euripedes shows in this play the effects of war and vengence on innocent lives and how cruel men at war can be. "Electra" is another retelling of the vengence story of Electra and Orestes. In this version, they are less heroic and more realistic then the way they are portrayed by Aeschylus and Sophocles. Interestingly, the one true noble and honest character in the play is the peasant husband of Electra, who refuses to tough her because he is beneath her station. Was Euripedes making a social comment about the upper classes of Athens of his time? The final play is "Heracles." In this play, the wife of Heracles, his three young sons, and Heracles' father Amphitryon are in danger of being killed by the usurping king of Thebes, Lycus. Lycus wishes them dead since he had killed Megara's father, King Creon, and taken his throne and Lycus doesn't want the three sons to grow up to avenge the death of their grandfather. Heracles is believed by many to be dead. But, he returns in time to thwart and kill Lycus. Unfortunately, the goddess Hera, who has always had a hatred of Heracles, sends the minor goddess Madness down to drive Heracles temporarily insane. In his fits, he kills his wife and sons. When sanity returns to him, he realizes what he has done and how immoral the gods are. The Greek gods are not an acceptable standard for moral behavior. Man can serve as a standard, and this is exemplified in the play by Theseus, ruler of Athens.

If you want to know how the Hamilton area is preparing to meet the chalenges of the new millennium, be sure to read this book. There's even an entire chapter on how the new generation is getting ready for what lies ahead. This book is very informative and it also features terrific photography of Southern Ontario scenes. I highly recommend it.

The book Enterprise 2000 is really cool! It discusses the way the businesses work and how the financial companies work. It is a really cool book and it has beautiful pictures and very descriptive articles. I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars because it's a really good book. Read it for yourself.

Title;Rabbits Squirrels and Chipmunks Author; Bancroft I think that this book is good for children 7 and up,and has lots factual things about Rabbits Squirrels and Chipmunks

Bushwhacked by Michael B. Davie is a refreshing change from all of the gung-ho, rah-rah books on George W. Bush.
Written from a Canadian prespective, Bushwhacked takes aim at the president's isolationist approach to politics, his lack of diplomacy and his bullying tactics on the world stage.
It truly is incredible that Bush hammers friendly countries such as Canada with unwarranted trade penalties - and then expects these same nations to blindly do whatever he asks of them.
Bushwhacked provides a long-overdue, honest appraisal of Bush, warts and all, and I highly recommend it.

This is a good book about ducks. It tells about how ducks are waterproof and it has an experiment on how it works. It tells how far they can dive and what they eat. It tells how far the can fly and which ones migrate and which ones don't.

Following The Great Spirit by Michael B. Davie presents an interesting overview of Aboriginal belief systems.
The author skilfully explores the Ghost Dance, Cargo Culture, and other unique North American Indian spiritual and magical phenomena.
This book offers concise, well written summaries and analysis of several matters of spiritual significance. It's an excellent introduction to fairly complex subject matter. There's a wealth of information on these pages: It's a very informative book. I highly recommend it.

Inside The Witches' Coven by Michael B. Davie is easily the best book I've come across on the subject of witches and Wiccan culture.
Why? Unlike the vast majority of rose-coloured, idealistic books out there that are about witches and are written by witches, this book presents an impartial view by a non-witch.
Davie explores the coven and its inner workings as an impartial observer. The result is a book that takes an analytical approach and pulls no punches in offering an unbiased viewpoint.

Another strength of Inside The Witches' Coven is that it's thoroughly researched, weaving historical information in with the goings-on of a modern day coven. Well-written and well-presented, this is a first-rate book on a little-known counter-culture.

Let me say straight off that I highly recommend The Late Man by Michael B. Davie.
Why? Unlike a lot of novels that give superficial treatment to the 1960s-1970s era or present it in idealistic terms, The Late Man offers a compelling story that pulls the petals off "flower power."
In this so-called age of free-expression, the novel's main character spends most of his time trying to fit in and conform with a set of rules that may differ from mainstream society - but are rules all the same. He discovers he's not as free as he thinks he is and he's duped into making bad decisions while trying to be cool.
This work of fiction will make you think long and hard about your perception of reality during a time of life that continues to influence generations of people. This is a fascinating and thought-provoking journey through the past.

There is no doubt about this great written book. The reason I only gave this book 4 starts is that I bought the book of "MPLS : Technology and Applications " from the same authors before this one. The coverage and contents between those two books are quite the same - Douh !. My suggestion is that just buy the "MPLS" one if you do not care about CSR and ARIS stuffs too much.

It is one of those few books that explains the concepts of label switching in a lucid style without confounding the readers. A must read.

This book was the first in series on the MPLS topic by Yakov and Davie, the two leading experts in the subject area. At the time this book was published, people didn't even know the term MPLS as opposed to now when it has become a latest acronym to be exploited by marketing parasites.

This book gives an excellent description of different label switching techniques implemented by different vendors at the time, such as IBM, Toshiba, Ipsilon and cisco. This breaks down the chapters on vendor by vendor basis, explains their implementation and then at the end compares all the different approaches.

Even though Yakov and Davie are both from cisco, you can't tell it from reading the book because they have presented the implementations in total impartiality and fairness and only judging the implementations on its technical merits.

After reading the book, you'd understand fundamentals like FEC, label stack encoding, LDP and various techniques/signaling to carry label switching information.

If you want to buy a book om MPLS today, you should go for the latest edition of this book, titled, 'MPLS technology and applications'.