I understoodd that it would be stupid to expect something close to the  "Market Wizard" standard from a 342 page book covering over 80 big names intriguing enough for 180 more books. However, I did expect a summary or two about the life, trading or investment methods of the people covered in the book. The passage devoted to Bernard Baruch is a rare exception to the above. A pity that it was mostly copy and paste from the work of other authors. Even worse, the content is not timely. For e.g., the article of Robertson was written nearly a decade before the Tiger Fund got drown in Russia. It would be much better if the author had written several volumes and covered more and timely of each guru.

Writing with James R. Vertin, author Charles D. Ellis presents brief profiles of 85 Wall Street leaders who contributed to the growth of the world's major financial marketplace. The authors divide these individuals - all men, which tells a tale right there - into four slightly arbitrary groups: masters of investing, movers and shakers, business builders, and wisemen and rascals. The collection is drawn from the other writers' pieces about these men, and includes occasional articles the featured financiers wrote themselves. Apart from a few brief notes about some patterns that the author observed, these excerpts from various sources stand alone, with no overarching theme or exposition. We [...] keenly feel the lack of a few analytical essays that might have pulled the collection together and integrated it thematically, but even so, this serves as a useful research tool and an interesting introduction to a unique confluence of powerful men.

This paperback is a collection of some of Richard Wagner's writings, viz:

1)
To the German Army Before Paris (a short, and unimportant poem meant to be set to music by another composer);
2)
A Capitulation (a second-rate burlesque, lampooning the French);
3)
Reminiscences of Auber (where Wagner gives a back-handed compliment to the French by praising an obscure French composer and an even more obscure opera);
4)
Beethoven (which is about Wagner himself and his feelings about music much more than it is about Beethoven);
5)
The Destiny of Opera (here, Wagner re-plows the same ground as in "Opera and Drama");
6)
Actors and Singers (a long article where Wagner critiques the theater stage, not to be confused with the opera stage);
7)
The Rendering of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (detailing the "improvements" he made in the orchestration; the performance was for the dedication of the foundation stone laying at Bayreuth);
8)
Letters (to an Actor; to an Italian Friend [Arrigo Boito] on the Production of "Lohengrin" at Bologna; to the Burgomaster of Bologna; to Friedrich Nietzsche);
9)
Some minor (short) essays (a Glance at the German Operatic Stage of Today [detailing his criticisms about the German opera houses he visited while scouting for talent for his upcoming Ring performances at his new opera house in Bayreuth] ; on the Name "MusikDrama"; Prologue to a Reading of "Die Götterdämmerung Before a Select Audience in Berlin").
10)
two reports about Bayreuth (where he is starting the construction of his personal opera house)

In 1893, the London Wagner Society published an English translation of the 8 volume set of Wagner's Collected Works. William Ashton Ellis supplied the rather clumsy English translation, perhaps excusable since Wagner's prose was equally clumsy. "Actors and Singers" is a reprint of volume 5 of that set, which covers the years 1870-1873. Note that the title "Actors and Singers" is merely one of the articles contained therein and does not constitute the entirety of the book (it is, however, the longest one, but not the most important one); in fact, it could have any one of a number of titles, including "Beethoven" or "The Destiny of Opera".

Do I recommend this book? Well, it is all written by Richard Wagner, so it is by nature at least a little interesting. Much of the material here is pretty inconsequential. Only "Beethoven" was of great interest to me, and, to a lesser degree, "A Glance at the German Operatic Stage of Today". I do recommend it for that reason alone, but my endorsement is rather lukewarm.

My name Ahmed Nfati,I,m student in university of Malta at Biology Department.

This book is an excellent resource for ATM issues. Unfortunately, it is written in what I would call a European academic style (he is European) and that means that you will find yourself reading the same paragraph 3 or 4 times before really figuring out what he is trying to explain. If you can put up with the style, one of the best books around on ATM...

I read the book, The Baby Project by Sarah Ellis a little while ago. This book was pretty good, the plot was unoriginal but still enjoyable to read. The author did a wonderful job explaining the characters. Basically this book is about a young girl and her family, a baby enters the family, things change..death haunts the family and is never the same. I do recommend this book if you like happy, short little novels. However, I really enjoyed Out of the Blue by Sarah Ellis, I suggest you read that novel.

-Derek Jacobi takes the lead in the role of Brother Cadfael. In the Cadfael box set, four television episodes are soundtrack recorded with a narrator. Vocally, these four stories are wonderful pieces of fiction. However, even with a narrator, it sounds as if we are missing something. The production values are excellent, since these are the Brother Cadfael TV series which ran on PBS . . . But on audio, it sounds hollow . . .

Originally published by WH Allen in 1981, as By Jove, Biggles !, a new semi-revised version was brought out for the Johns centenary in 1993. This hardback edition from Veloce has 314 pages and stitched binding. There is an index and a bibliography. Probably unintentionally following the lead of Johns (who also wrote under pseudonyms: William Earle, Jon Early, Flight Lieutenant, and perhaps "Vigilant"), it seems his two biographers are also prone to multiple identities/genders, writing variously as: Peter Ellis = Peter Tremayne = Peter MacAlan & as Piers Williams = Jenny Schofield.

The book is both a biography of Johns' and an analysis/rear-guard defence of some aspects of Johns' fiction. Much of the primary source material for the biography is drawn from Johns' own published autobiographical anecdotes circa the 1930s - 1960s. The book is liberally laced with excerpts from Johns' editorials, interviews and commentaries, conveniently mustered here all in the one volume. Other material is drawn from relatives of Johns and independent sources. Unfortunately the various informants are sometimes in disagreement. Intermittently the dividing line between the biographical fact and the fiction in Johns' own memoirs becomes indistinguishable. The biographers include both versions of an actual incident in which Johns & TE Lawrence met, but thereupon later each wrote highly contradictory accounts. This underlines the danger in accepting too readily an author's own autobiographical accounts, when these are reworked for posterity and public consumption 15 to 20 years after the original events. (I do not believe the nun episode, pull the other leg please.)

While I have no knowledge of the co-authors' working routine when producing this work, I am left with a distinct impression that the contradictions evident in some of their views expressed at different places in the book could be explained by the co-authors not quite having both their clocks synchronised. This again somewhat echoes Johns' own idiosyncracies, whereby some of the Semitic stereotypes appearing in Johns' work in the mid-1930s either disappeared in the face of the holocaust, never to re-surface after 1939; or, in the case of racial slurs which continued to appear until the mid 1950s were finally rectified in sanitised reprints published after Johns' death. The original text of Biggles in Australia is never mentioned in this context, although Biggles and the Black Raider is examined. It remains unclear to what extent Johns (& Biggles) led, or trailed, or merely reflected attitudes within the English intelligentsia current at any particular point in time. The biographers have nothing to say in regards to Johns' (Biggles') persistent bigoted vilifications of all things Japanese. Somebody should have told Johns (1) English does not have an indigenous script, Japanese uses three distinct scripts, two of which are indigenous (2) cultured pearls are indistinguishable from natural pearls (3) Japanese saw technology surpasses European saw technology (at a time when Europeans were still living in thatched huts).

The biographers allow a few factual mistakes to creep into their text, more through carelessness than ignorance. Still I don't think it commendable that these should be apparent even to a mere fan, while at the same time getting past both the authors and their proof-reader/s. Among the illustrations facing p161 is a photograph of the book "Biggles" of the Camel Squadron, with the dustjacket depicting German biplanes under attack by Sopwith Camels. I find it bizarre, although telling, that the authors should allow an illustration in which a swastika has been painted on the fuselage of a 1918 German warplane to make it into the final publication.

The organisation of this edition varies from the original printing, with some of the material relating to the 1970s and 1980s controversy over political correctness in Johns' work being relegated from the front of the first edition to the back of the second edition. It is to be regretted that the co-authors did not see fit to go to the trouble to re-write the treatment of Mossyface and other earley (!) works in the original text of the book, instead leaving the subsequently discredited discussion from the first edition unchanged for the second edition. Ironically, in the second edition it is only after one reads the Afterword at the end of the book that one learns what one read in the middle of the book was inaccurate.

In assessing this book it would be helpful to know who sponsored its production.

The book would be appreciated by anyone with an interest in Johns, Biggles, Worrals & Co. But for a scholarly analysis of Biggles et alia as a cultural phenomenon mirroring British mores of the mid 20th century I think we must hope some other writer (or PhD English literature or sociology student) takes up the challenge. I look forward to theses on (a) the theme of cross-dressing in Biggles, Worrals and Steeley, (b) morbidity, mortality and the epidemiology of lung cancer and emphysema among Biggles readers, (c) cinema archetypes and the characters in the books of Johns, & (d) a ghost writing whodunnit - the problem with "Biggles Works it Out".

Overall, the Casebriefs has been tremendously useful for me. However, it is missing some significant cases from LaFave. And the software interface is amazingly bad and not user friendly. These days even shareware software programs have friendly, effective interfaces. Gilbert Law needs to spend a couple dollars and have someone re-write their software interface program.

Kent

I'm no expert in this period of history, I have an understanding of the cultures and countries involved and as such I enjoyed this book very much. I have read an earlier book by this author 'The Celtic Empire' which I thought was a well written and presented account of the Celtic people. This led me to purchase this book and I will more than likely buy his latest account of the Celts titled 'Celt & Roman'.

In this book the author covers the Celts during the period of the time when Greece and Rome were the dominate players in the ancient world. Its an enjoyable read and I learnt a few things on the journey. The book covers their social background and inter-action with other people along with their military campaigns against the Greeks and Romans and their occassional mercenary role in the ancient armies. The author does not go into excessive detail but certainly provides the facts as he knows them and tells a good story in the process.

Though the book does a good job of laying out the chain of command, army structure,rank structure,and a history of how the army came to be what it was in that period, thats not really what I was personally looking for in a book about uniforms. It does have general descriptions of shoulder straps and their meanings as well as some general issue and commonly seen decorations, but these are all in black and white photos. I think a paragraph was given to headwear and footwear. It focused mainly on the tunic and its trimmings. Half the book was history, half pictoral descriptions.