Good book, but it was obvious that it was written by an Englishman, without even having to read the author bio. It seemed to be fair for the most part, but I didn't understand the depiction of Irishmen in Ireland as "minorities", and Englishmen in Ireland as "loyalists". Other than that, it was a fairly enjoyable action novel. The only issue was that Mr Seymour couldn't seem to decide who was the protagonist and who was the villain, so the book didn't really bring you to root for either side. Of course, that may have been the point, showing that there really is no black and white on the IRA issue. Overall, an enjoyable read.

This was the first Gerald Seymour book read by me, and a few years ago it was too. If my memory serves me correct this was his first, or one of his first books. I thoroughly enjoyed Harry's Game, concerning the IRA and it's struggle with the English. It's certainly not as polished as his later offerings, but Seymour still manages to grip you with his ability to get into the underbelly that was and is the Irish conflict. An interesting read for fans of Seymour who haven't explored his early offerings, and a gound sound read for all. Recommended.

As a native of Belfast, I have never found anyone who captures the essence of the place at the time of maximum IRA activity (hopefully now forever past) as well as Gerald Seymour. This helps makes the unlikely premise of the story quite convincing as well as exciting. And Seymour doesn't demonise or canonise anyone, leaving things as shades of grey and showing us that terrorists are ordinary men with extraordinary convictions. Still, I'd have appreciated knowing more about what drove Harry to put his neck on the line in this way.

Some of the information in this book is excellent, however much of it is incomplete or lacking. It is a compilation of writings of various authors, and it appears the editors couldn't find "volunteers" for the chapters on some of the best waters. The chapters on the North Fork of the White and Little Red Rivers are good, however others (such as the White River) are severly lacking. The format varies for each chapter, so river milage, accesses, fly recommendations and landmarks may be available for one river, but not for another.

Directions are given to some of the locations, however they invariably assume the traveler is approaching from a direction different from where I come from.

All-in-all, not a bad reference material for an area that has little written about it.

This is the book to get if you are a seasoned Arkansas fly fisherman or a first timer. The book contains maps, recommendations and a list of accommodations available in the area of each of the rivers covered. The is also information on trout rivers in Missourri and Tennessee.

This book is a very helpful guide to the beginning or avid fly fisher. It gives information on fly-tying, the best places to fish and stay, conditions to look for, equipment, etc. One of the best features I found was the river maps in the back and access points to them. Very well organized.

I have not read the book but wonder about the author who has such a desregard for public safety, public order of the role of the police to protect us from violence. His behaviour during the Gustafsen Lake occupation revealed someone on the edge and held him up to widespread public ridicule.

This is Bruce Clark's third book on the legality of Native land claims in North America. His first two books were: Indian Title In Canada (Carswell Law Publishers, Toronto, 1986) and Native Liberty, Crown Sovereignty: The Existing Aboriginal Right of Self-Government in Canada (McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 1990).

Dr. Clark has made a career of defending native land claims in Canada and the US, based on legal arguments that the taking of native lands without purchase or treaty, by US and Canadian federal and/or state and provincial governments, has been unlawful. The argument is so open-and-shut, that courts refuse to hear it, since part of the argument is that the courts do not have jurisdiction. In over 40 cases, the court has refused to hear or respond to the argument. It is based on 18th century British constitutional law, which has not been repealed, and which is still in force in Canada and the USA. Starting with the Jackson administration in the US, the governments have simply decided to ignore the law on this matter. In the 1690s one of the branches of the great Mohican tribe made a treaty with the colony of Connecticut. The colony then allowed settlers onto the land. The Indians objected, saying the purpose of the treaty had been to prevent settlers from moving in. Connecticut felt the purpose was so that it could allow the settlers to move in. Absolutely opposite viewpoints of the same document. Rather than go to war, the Mohicans wanted to find a peaceful rule of law solution. But they did not want to go into the court system that the colony of Connecticut had set up, since doing that would admit that the intruding settlers had legal jurisdiction. And Connecticut would not accept the Mohican court. The Mohicans petitioned Great Britain's Queen Anne to find a solution. On March 9, 1804, as recommended by the Privy Council, Queen Anne issued an Order in Council (meaning that this decision was constitutionally binding on the British Crown and on all colonial governments in North America) asserting three principles: 1) Creation of a third-party court to adjudicate land disputes between Native Peoples and the colonial governments of the European settlers; 2) This court was to be a trial-level court; 3) Appeals against decisions by this court would be heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. From 1704 when the Mohicans first applied to the Queen to the beginning of the American Revolution in 1776, the case of Mohegan Indians vs. Connecticut was regarded as the single most important case in the history of the British Empire. It guaranteed colonized peoples the right to independent and impartial third-party adjudication in human rights matters. The genius of that court case was that, if it had not (illegally) been ignored, it could have prevented genocide in North America. Dr. Clark has been disbarred by the Ontario Law Society for making these arguments, and has been charged with contempt of court for making these arguments, even though the courts refuse to hear the arguments; hence, there is no basis for the court to say that they are wrong arguments. Dr. Clark's writing of this book is further basis for contempt of court. Like Galileo, Dr. Clark's only escape from imprisonment for making an argument is to renounce that argument. Which he refuses to do.

Law is based on Truth. Arguments are not disproved by the use of force of punishment and jail.

Justice In Paradise recounts how a commitment to Native rights and an extraordinary passion for the rule of law have determined the course of Bruce Clark's life. From a childhood in an Indian residential school, to the defense of aboriginal rights before the Word Court, to being disbarred, Clark's struggle has led him to fight against the justice system itself. Justice In Paradise explains the legal and philosophical position behind Clark's opposition to the Indian rights industry. Clark argues that the North American legal system causes the genocide of those indigenous peoples who embrace traditional religion and identity and accuses those who administer it with chicanery and abandoning the rule of law. Clark turned his back on a comfortable lawyer's life to defend the rule of law and Native rights across the whole of North America. Justice In Paradise is a candid, fascinating biography that will prove fascinating to students of law, Native American rights, and non-specialist general readers who enjoy reading of men and women who make their mark upon the world with an untiring and activist devotion to their ideals and principles.

As a devotee of Michelin Guides Vert, in anticipation of our forthcoming trip to Normandy and Brittany I was delighted to find listed on Amazon.com "Michelin THE GREEN GUIDE - Northern France and the Paris Region". On its arrival today I was disappointed to find that neither of our destination Departments was included - only "Nord - Pas de Calais", "Picardie", and "Ile de France - Paris". For what it covers, I presume that this volume meets Michelin's usual high standard. However, either Michelin or Amazon should have indicated what areas "Northern France" includes in this instance, if only by posting the small map of France highlighting the covered departments, that appears on the back cover of the volume. Also, the coverage of the city of Paris is only 7 pages plus a two page map. Thus, those anticipating a substantial coverage of Paris may be disappointed.

Unlike the previous reviewer, I was looking for coverage of Picardie (not Normandie or Bretagne or Paris, which are covered in separate Michelin guides), so this guide was perfect.

The guide covers Picardie, Nord Pas de Calais/French Flanders and the Ile de France. The coverage is exactly what one would expect from Michelin's intelligent, historical and comprehensive reviewing. I thought that the inclusion of coverage of the Ile de France was properly placed, and Michelin affords it detailed attention, as opposed to being treated as sidetrips from Paris.

Therefore, the guide is excellent for both Northern France and the Ile de France.

The 4th edition is quite a change from past green guides. It is much longer and includes limited hotel and restaurant listings as well as useful website addresses. It provides detailed information on architecture, art, beaches, numerous chateaux, nature reserves, walking tours etc for Flanders, Picardy etc. It is a great guide, especially if you have a car, as it provides a number of suggestions for driving tours. If you want a guide for the city of Paris it is probably better to get a guide that concentrates just on that city. However, if you want a guide for Pas-de-Calais towns and the greater Paris region (Versailles, Chartres, Fontainebleau) this one is a very good choice.

I picked up THE NORTHERN LIGHTS after having read Norman's superb second novel, THE BIRD ARTIST, and was disappointed. Although reviews were strong for this book, and I believe it was a National Book Award finalist, it felt like an apprentice effort to me. The characters and situations were strange--as they often were in THE BIRD ARTIST--but not nearly as compelling. The plot was loose and slippery, and didn't cohere by the end of the novel. It felt like Norman was trying too hard to be obscure and poetic. This is a mediocre first novel, but does hint at the wonderful things to come. Now go read THE BIRD ARTIST.

This is a fantanstic book. Norman tells a story very well; his clean beautiful writing style evokes the northern remote wilderness settlements vividly. In this setting, two young boys become great friends, and their relationship grows as they do. This book reminded me of A Separate Peace, with a Canadian edge and tone. It compelled me to read The Bird Artist -- also terrific.

I picked up this novel in part to see if Norman's wonderfully written novel The Museum Guard was a fluke. I can say emphatically that it was not. The Northern Lights is Norman's first novel, but his prose reads like a veteran writer's. Rich with the details, personal habits, quirks, and eccentricities that make up real people, Lights is basically a coming of age story set in 1950s and 1960s northern Canada. As with The Museum Guard, Norman's characters are driven by strange tragedy. In The Museum Guard, the main character's parents are killed in a Zeppelin accident; in the Northern Lights, Noah's best friend Pelly is killed when his unicycle breaks through the ice. This sets in motion a series of events that forces Noah to adjust to the loss of his friend, and come to grips with his wandering father and lonely mother, who is obsessed with the story of Noah's ark to the point of illness. Unlike with the animals on the ark, Norman shows us that sometimes people have no companion, and must survive alone, even when surrounded by people who love them. The Cree Indians are richly drawn, and provide a touchstone--a remembrance of Pelly--when Noah moves to Toronto and befriends a family of Cree. Told in shifting chronology, the story draws the reader back and forth from action to reaction to an ending that will leave you ready for another Norman novel.

At first I thought this was an *Angela's Ashes* clone, beginning as it did with a grim Irish childhood. But no. Adrian McKinty speaks with an Irish voice, to be sure, but it is his own voice. Like Joyce Carol Oates, he refrains from using quotes in his dialogue, to good advantage. The device brings his characters closer. After some confusion about who is talking when and where, the reader adjusts, understands and gets with the flow. It's "wee" for "little," "arse" for "ass" and sentence construction contains somewhat of the brogue, "Black and voracious are the lines between us" says he. Toward the end it all pulls together philosophically.

"This whole society was sick. He could see that now. Sick and indifferent to it all. They had their hard wee God; white and dour and manifest. Their country crawling with believers. The homogeneity of it was crippling." And later,

"Couldn't they see? How could they? With their pariah eyes and the schizophrenic noose of their allegiance. Split between loving England and hating it. Booing the English at football games and mourning when their soldiers died. These people who didn't even know if they wanted to be called Irish or not. Stateless. Orphans of history with only their mad religion to give them any identity at all."

I don't enjoy violence in novels or movies, but this is not gratuitous violence. The author is telling it like it is. My only problem is with the female protagonist. She's not convincingly female - not because she's precocious and perceptive, not because of the nose-picking or scatological references. It's a "je ne sais quoi". I hear a young boy talking - not a young girl. McKinty's other female characters are believable enough, but then, they are all in the background.

This is, in my opinion, a stunning first novel with a great deal of promise. I will be looking forward to future contributions by Adrian McKinty.

pamhan99@aol.com

There is a good novel in this writer, but this isn't it. The depiction of the teenager's life and day to day trials and tribulations are well written, dryly humorous, and showcase the writer's talents. Much less believable are the passages involving the psychopathic ex-terrorist. The senselessness of the overall N.I. situation comes through loud and clear....but we know that without having to read this book. Perhaps having worked his home town problems out of his system with this book, he can get to grips with the novel that parts of this work suggest he is capable of writing. I for one will be looking out for it.

This is a surreal, and compelling novel about among other things - redemption through violence. Like the Amazon reviewer I found it a little disturbing but no more so than Cormac McCarthy or J G Ballard. The humor is dry and the tone is one of obvious irony. There are passages of great lyricism and beauty but lovers of Irish fiction beware: Maeve Binchy it isn't

The reviews of bed and breakfast inns are good. We stayed at two of the properties listed during our honeymoon and the information on them is reasonably accurate. The photographs in the book are nice and give a better idea of the look af the inn.

With a title like "Weekends for two" I was expecting more information on dining and other activities in the areas. In many of the towns listed in this book there are great little romantic restaurants, trails for a walk, live theater, small wineries with amazing views, but there is hardly any information on this in the book. You may want to complement this book with a good guide that has more information on daytime activities. Or if you want just one book, go for the latest edition of the Best places to kiss in Northern California.

Every page of this book is color picture of the BB, detail description of the rooms,and the price range. If you are interested only on the BB and places away from the touristy cities, you can find some interesting places where you may not heard of. Some of BB are kind in the high price range, like high $200 or $300.

Haven't even read it yet....but found it just the way I was looking for to "gift" a young couple a weekend away to celebrate their wedding anniversary!Much more fun to let them pick out the place than to plan it for them.

I read this book for a course in social anthropology and while it is a detailed ethnographic monograph it is difficult to understand the language and it would help to know more about the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland before reading it.

This is an absorbing account well worth reading. The oral history segments are fascinating and informative. The scholarly analysis, though insightful, is not meant for the casual reader. Students of Irish politics will like this book, but they may need a political theorist specializing in the body to help them understand the more involved analytical segments. Worth reading.

To read this book took more time and capacity than I had expected. Most of the students in my group choosed not to read this book, because of its reputation which was rather ambivalent. I decided not to give it up before I had given it a try, and I do not regret a moment... I have to admit that my frustration (but indeed my admiration too) grew during the reading. The theme is a complexe one, but the author has taken his therorethical fundation seriously. As a book most theoretically influenced by Michel Foucault and Friedrich Nietzsche, takes theese two philosophers out of the abstract theroretical discourse and add to it the empirically based reality of Northern Ireland. The manner in which this has been done is elequant; the mixing between the oral histories told by the informants together with the analytical parts in between. The book is absolute worth reading, and the insight one (hopefully) gets through Feldmans narration can be used on several arenas and in different academic diciplins, for my part in social science.

Please! Resaurants are to children what fire is to the Scarecrow! I found this book extremely disappointing because more than half of it focuses on dining and museums both of which most children I know would loath to enter. It listed places like Greens Restaurant (an excellent choice but not for kids) and Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. Both of these would be sheer torture for the average 4 to 9 year old. I really can't understand how the publisher allowed this book to be released as guide for children's activities. The author takes the trouble to list such overexposed restaurants as the Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood (a guide for teenagers maybe?) and misses many of the authentic pleasures for kids in Northern California. There are a few good children's activities listed like the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Oakdale but the bulk of the book is strictly for adults. I want my money back!

My children really enjoyed visiting about 270 places out of the over 300 places identified in this book. The age range for each visit was given, so we were able to pick and choose appropriate places to visit. The phone numbers and the dates/times the places are open are invaluable. The places are listed in geographic order, so you can visit the places pretty much in order.

Unfortunately, it has been over four years since the book was updated, so much of the information is outdated. We are looking forward eagerly for the next edition.

I received this over 3 years ago as an anniversay gift from my wife. Our son was 4 months old at the time. Since then, we have put this guide to great use. On weekdays, my wife and son use it. On weekends my son and I use it for guy-bonding adventures. Sometimes all three of us get to the same fun place together, particularly on vacation.

The book will become part of our family history as we scribble our son's date 1st visited in the margin next to each entry.

Yes, it's due for revision. We hope 2001 will bring an update for those so inclined to want one. We'll hang onto our copy and keep scrawling in our own updates and corrections.

We've been to six of the destinations on the Top 11 Places list in the front. That list is handy to give us a goal to get ourselves to every place on that list.

My son's personal favorites include SF Exploratorium, Six Flags Marine World, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Jack London State Historic Park, Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park. There are also gems of little museums that I have enjoyed bringing him along to enjoy, such as the Silverado Museum in St Helena which pays tribute to Robert Louis Stevenson. Without this book, we would never have found such a rich variety of fun places to share with our son.

Get it and "365 TV-Free Activities You Can Do With Your Child," by Steve & Ruth Bennett. Your children will thank you much later for the time you spent being with them!

Life in the Fast Lane was repetitive and self-serving. There was nothing new about the years with Ferrari. This Irvine fan was quite disappointed.

A nice glimpse into the world of Eddie Irvine, although it never gets intimate. This is a narrative. Eddie, and some of his friends and family, tell little stories about his life and particularly the '99 season.

Not particularly well written, it's people talking about Eddie and his interests and his thoughts on life. And the reader has to have some knowledge on F1. Disappointingly, not much detail or explanations are given about the year's events.

Example: Not one conversation is recorded or recalled with Michael Shumacher. Just general impressions about his talented teammate. I wanted more.

I gave it 3 stars (not less) because I'm a hardcore F1 and Eddie fan.

Eddie Irvine was very close to the championship title. This book, the 2nd about him, tell you about how he was very close to winning the championship, including what actually happen when he outbrake Schumacher before the crash in Silverstone...a priceless book for fans and collectors alike...better than Schumacher's book...