A Gripping True WWII POW Escape Story!!

This book took me over until the very last page.

I usually don't care for reading as a past time and especially novels that take too long to get through.

I read this book over 20 years ago (and only did so by chance after finding it in the school library), because I had to submit a book report during my junior high school years.

I enjoyed the book so much I eagery and ultimately compiled a great book report and was awarded 9/10 as a grade.

Funny enough, I did so well with it that I took the liberty to re-submitted the same book report the following year and again was awarded another high mark (of course it was a different teacher and I had to re-write and date it).

In fact here I am over 20 years later I plan to get my very own copy. That's how much I enjoyed it!

"The Wooden Horse" by Eric Williams is a fabulous book and would make a perfect gift to that person who you think should read more...but doesn't.

They'll thank you for it!

Don't be put off by the recent "out of print" status, this book is a great true story of a prison breakout in WW2. You can also easily pick it up through Amazons second hand bookstores for a relatively cheap price.

Written by the escapee himself, it retains all its charm and spirit since it first received rave reviews in the late 1940s to early 1950s.

The breakout came from a novel, yet brilliant idea inspired by the Legend of the Trojan Horse- ie to use a gym vaulting horse as cover to hide an inmate who dug a tunnel to the nearest concentration camp fence. It succeeded, but I won't ruin the story with all the details, you will have to read it yourself! Rest assured the book is well written, and as it is told by one of the escapees himself it has a certain charm, readability and authenticity about it.

Getting out was just the first part, the escapees still had to travel across most of Germany to reach home, right amidst the heartlessness and desparation of WW2. I found the description of the lives of everyday German people within a major war as soulful, revealing and harrowing as the concentration camp itself.

A remarkable story, a great and uplifting novel, sure to inspire for many years to come. No mundane "political correctness" here, truthfully told and recorded with all the desperation, fear, and courageous spirit of many involved in the war-on both sides.

There was a film also made in the 1960s I think, which was almost as good as the book, but not quite. Of similar genre to The Wooden Horse is "the Great Escape", also made into a film, but the Wooden Horse is more realisitic and better done overall in my opinion.

Uplifts the spirit.

If you read "The Great Escape" by Paul Brickhill, you are bound to enjoy this book. It is also set in a POW Camp, and Eric Williams and Michael(I can't remember the surname) devise a scheme to trick the Germans.

This book was both touching, brilliant, fun, exciting and absorbent. It really taught me a lot about what life was like during WWII. This book is among the Top War books, for Sure!

an excellent collection of rock photos from rolling stone
beautiful work

This is one of the best photographic books I have ever seen. The photographers who took these photos really captured the feeling and emotions of the artists at the time. All the classic and famous personalities of music are here, from Ike and Tina to Bob Dylan; from Elvis to Bowie to Nirvana; from The Beatles and Stones to Alice Cooper and all that lies between (too too many to list here). An excellent array of both black and white and colour shots. The close ups allow you to see into the sometimes troubled, sometimes happy, but ever changing eyes of these rock icons. The broader shots show some of these bands and performers in their most comfortable and bizarre surrounds. A worthwhile purchase, that allows you to ponder each and every photo for hours and hours. In the back is a complete copy (small version) of the photos together with a who is who. Buy the hardcover; not only is it worth the price, but it will last forever. This is easily the greatest and most comprehensive collection of rock and roll pictures in one publication!

the best part was courtney love on the cover, and nirvana on the last page.

I really can't exepess all my feeling towards this book. Its not lot any religios book that I have ever read. The book was very clear and controversial. It was hard for me to put it down. Kept my attention threw the hole book.

A refreshing look at faith that you won't find in mainstream Christianity. This book at least will challenge the dogma of established religiosity. It will also stimulate you to the degree, once you begin it is almost impossible to put it down, and go on with just everyday living. It createdly excites the realm of reality plus gives credence to a literary imagination.

Very spiritual uplifting book ! A must read !

A tremendous piece of literature I was lucky enough to read at age 8. I'm still re-reading it today as an adult and continue to find it imaginitive, without being syrupy or preachy. Our protagonist, the minstral-turned-Prince, must save the Princess Saralinda before the coniving Duke forces her to marry him. The Duke sets out an impossible task for the Prince, hoping that he will perish before he weds Saralinda on her 21st Birthday.

What is so amazing about this story is that each character has so much more dimension than the average fairy tale character. At times the Duke is almost likable and the Prince can be frustratingly unheroic. Even Saralinda escapes from the cotton candy persona of most heroines. Sure, she's beautiful, but she has an assumed cleverness that is presented as normal rather than over-emphasized in a Disney-like way.

I would highly recommend this book to children and adults alike. A note to eight-year-olds: Look up the hard words. It's worth the time. Trust me

...the writing is so lyrical, the characters so funny, and characteristic of thurber, frought with human flaws while still being heroes, and each adventure solved, in the end, by wit and ingenuity. the prose is beautifully tight. it is written, like E.B. White, for the inner ear -- sonorous, and full of Thurber mischief. "I am the Golux, the one and only Golux -- and not a mere device." My eight-year old loves the rhythm. My 11 year old loves the humor, and I love thurber's wink to me about literary devices...for us, this book is always at hand for the sheer joy of reading it aloud.

I thought that this book was a great book and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read great fairy tale. A tale with Princes, Princess and an evil Duke. I couldn't put the book down. It was short and sweet. There is a simple plot and characters that are easy to relate to. There were many descriptive sentences that painted detailed pictures in your head. I also enjoyed the pictures in the book and found them very amusing. This book as some surprising twists in it that you would never guess. Again I would highly recommend this book for anyone of all ages that just want to read something that is good and it doesn't take him or her days to read. It is just an awesome book to read. I hope you enjoy it.

I believe that this book is the definitive work on the reality of the battle of Jutland and the demographics that existed in the Royal Navy in the years leading up to that conflict. I personally concentrated on the description of events in the battle, rather than the Naval background, and found it to be the ONLY work that I have read that addressed the personalities involved in an objective manner. The analysis of the battle movements, loss of ships and relative positioning is without peer. At last, a clear picture emerged from the confusion created by earlier works. I could not commend this book highly enough for anyone interesed in this naval engagement or its background.

This is a quite epic narrative history, which reads with the facility and pace of a well-constructed thriller. It is at once a social history of the Royal Navy that spans the Ironclad, Dreadnought and Great War eras, a dissertation on naval signalling and fleet-handling in a period of unprecedented technical innovation, a reflection on the challenges and stresses of leadership and a thrilling account of the Battle of Jutland from a British perspective. The book opens with a quite thrilling account of the opening phase of the battle, in which technical and human complexities are treated with equal aplomb, then breaks off - leaving the reader all but white knuckled - at the moment the German High Seas Fleet appears on the scene and forces Beatty's Battle Cruiser Force and Fifth Battle Squadron to turn northwards. It might seem an anti-climax to be diverted from this drama to the controversies that dominated the Navy in the Late-Victorian and Edwardian periods but this part of the story, with its splendidly delineated cast of larger-than-life characters, is no less gripping, especially in view of its ultimate relevance to command and control decisions at the potentially climactic encounter at Jutland. The third part of the book returns to the battle itself, with the arrival of Jellicoe's Battle Fleet, the main clash and the subsequent night action and German escape. The complexities of naval manoeuvre have seldom been so clearly portrayed in print, with excellent use being made of simple diagrams for illustration, and colour and pace are lent to the narrative by many well-chosen extracts from survivor's accounts, ranging from the light-hearted to the outright ghastly. This was indeed a battle where there was no mid-point between unscathed survival and horrific injury. The story is told almost exclusively from the Royal Navy viewpoint - that indeed of a British participant - and, thought this adds great immediacy, readers will need to look elsewhere for a more detailed account of the German movements. The final part of the book is in many ways the saddest, detailing the recriminations, self-justifications and personal tragedies involving the main participants after the war. A postscript that deals with the problem of intelligence overload as a purely Naval concern will be found by many readers to have singular relevance to large modern organisations employing E-Mail! This is, in summary, a quite magnificent piece of work and a delight for enthusiasts of naval history. The only mild criticism that might be made is that the writer has omitted to discuss how experience from the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars might have influenced Royal Naval thinking on visual signalling and fleet control under battle conditions. Japanese experience might be assumed to have been of particular relevance in view of the strong Royal Navy influence on Japanese naval development - and of the presence on Togo's flagship at Tsu-Shima of Captain William Packenham, who later commanded the 2nd. Battle Cruiser Squadron at Jutland. This minor gripe aside one can but long for more from the pen of Mr.Gordon.

The Rules of the Game adds to our under- standing of those factorsin the battle of Jutland which make it such a fascinating example of the "fog of war" and the mind-sets of commanders hobbled by tradition and their own preconceptions. Gordon explores the backgrounds of the various British admirals -- Jellicoe, Beatty, Evan-Thomas, etc --who commanded elements of the Grand Fleet. The book's format is unusual: it begins with an account of the opening phases of the battle, then backtracks 100 years, delving into the personalities and events which shaped the Royal Navy after Trafalgar. The author has his heroes and bete-noirs -- those who attempted to bring realism into fleet maneuvers and those who could see no farther than the shine on a ship's binnacle. The Victoria sinking of 1893 and the deqath of Admiral Tryon played a major role, according to Gordon, in arresting evolutionary practices in ship handling and signalling. Midway through the book, we get back to the battle, which is clearly described , although not in such detail as accounts by Corbett and Marder. The author obviuosly has access to new material, which he utilizes to present us with new perspectives on both British and German command decisions. I highly recommend this book to any student of naval history for its intelligent use of sources, clarity of writing, and thoughtful conclusions

I am an 11th grade history student who is very intellectual but has one problem- I cannot read nonfiction. However, when I read this book by Woodward for a class assignment, I found the book so readable that I was enthralled and even enjoyed reading through the engrossing decision-making and conversations. What's more, a reader feels like they get the real facts from the book and see the real reasons that decision makers act in certain ways; it is hardly a random action- these men take their jobs seriously and do it well. Cynicism I may have felt towards government has become more controlled and more muted after reading this book. I recommend it.

I found this book well worth the read. I quite honestly had forgotten many of the events surrounding the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War. This book brought it all back into perspective. Woodward's research and ability to tell the whole story gives you a "fly on the wall" status. He tries not to make any judgements either on the events themselves or the players involved. Woodward succeeds in laying it all out there for you.

I will admit Woodward does seem to have a bias toward Powell, but not enough so that you think he is forcing him on you. He doesn't paint an overly rosy picture of Bush, often leaving you wondering about Bush's decision-making skills or intentions. This may only be because he was not able to personally use Bush as a source.

I am a big fair of Woodward, so much so that I would even consider reading his shopping list. Overall this book gives the reader some very interesting stories about the military preparation and political decision making that led up to the Attack on Panama and the Gulf War. The book also gives you the details of the inner workings of the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I do not think there is a current writer / investigative reporter that has the ability to get the inside information Woodward always does, at time I wonder if he does not pay people to take tape recorders with them to meetings. He provides so much detail and very useful explanations of the process that you really feel that you are there. He always puts together a great book and he has done it here again. I also have the book by the 1st Bush "A World Transformed", and in the book he states that for the most part everything in this Woodward book is correct, I do not think you can get a better recommendation then that. You will defiantly enjoy this book.

Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe is more than history, it's American Literature. His prose flows elegantly and distinguishly across each page. The reader can definitely tell that Parkman was most passionate about this work, he spent most of his life researching and writing it. The care and attention he gave to the work shows. Granted this is probably not the best book for a high school student on the French and Indian war, but for someone who has read and enjoys to read history this is definitely worth a go.

As has been said, Montcalm and Wolfe is Parkman's masterpiece. It was the first thourough account of the French and Indian War and contains some of the most detailed descriptions of the people, places, and events that shaped the North American theater of the first truly global conflict. Here we encounter the dramatic events which lead toward the final confrontation for dominion over the continent. We see a young Virginia Colonel named George Washington leading troops into battle for the first time at Fort Necessity, Braddock's fateful campiagn along the Monogahela, the massacres at Fort Oswego and William Henry by the Indians under Montcalm, the fall of Fort Dusquene, and finally, the culmination of many long and bloody battles, the capture of Quebec and the almost romanticized deaths of Montcalm and Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham. What is truly interesting is that we see the war through the eyes of someone still living in a time when the Indian wars of the west were still being fought and when the country was in the grip of Manifest Destiny and, as a result, Parkman is often very harsh in his views of the Indians and their "savage" ways. Yet, even so, he often gives them more credit than most of his contemporaries.

It is unforunate that today so little is taught or learned about this important event in American history. Today, it seems that the French and Indian War is all but ignored save for being mentioned as a prelude to the American Revolution which it helped spawn rather than as the major turning point in the history of North America and the world. For it is this bloody conflict, fought in the unending wilderness of America, where French regulars and courer de bois crept through the dark woods alongside painted Huron and Ottawa warriors to attack the English settlements, and young redcoated soliders marched shoulder to shoulder to their horrific deaths by rifle ball and tomahawk, that gave birth to what would become the Untied States and changed the course of world history. But even more than that, it is a fascinating period of history more powerful than any piece of fiction. This is history of the highest order. Highly recommended.

Parkman "wrote the book" on the French and Indian War and created a benchmark for historians that has stood on its merits since published in 1884. Moreover, Parkman creates a primer on making history real and exciting for the reader. His writing style bridges the century since he wrote it. This book is one of seven in Parkman's series "The French and English in North America". Each volume was intended to stand alone. This, the final and most popular volume, covers the fall of Quebec and events leading up to it. The first chapter alone, "The Combatents" does an extraordinary job of setting the scene in Europe that led to this savage wilderness war in North America. Also of interest will be the foreword which paints a vivid picture of the unusual Mr. Parkman. "Montcalm and Wolfe" reads well, provides a sense of "being there" and must be one of the great histories not only of the battle for North America, but of European history as well.

What a wonderful, dusty, fern-festooned treasure hunt of a book this tome is! Young Mr. Woodward has a sympathetic vibration in his soul for ruins, and communicates this passion to the reader most convincingly. Ruins of all kinds in Europe and the UK are explored here: Edwardian houses, medieval abbeys, Italian towns and palaces that were victims of recent earthquakes, the great Roman ruins, artificial ruins for the gardens of cultured gentry, and even imaginary ruins, Picturesque-era paintings of landmarks as they might appear after the fall of civilization.

The usual Romantic era luminaries make appearances: Byron, the Shelleys, Keats, inspired by the Italian ruins to reflect on the grandeur that was Rome. Possibly the saddest passage is on the destruction of English country manors, which had been commandeered by the army during WWII, and were beyond the owners' ability to repair at war's end. Woodward says that so many of these were destroyed in the Fifties that the loss to British heritage rivals that of the Dissolution of 1536, when the abbeys were closed by Henry VIII.

This is a ramble, not a tour, so don't expect a clearly laid out thesis. Strikingly, Woodward's strongest expression of nostalgia is not for the famous ruins as they were when they were intact, but for when they were overgrown and seldom-visited. He relates Stendhal's account of a visit to the Colosseum, where the traveler saw an Englishman riding his horse on the floor of the arena. "I wish that could be me," grumps Woodward. From him I learn that there was even a book published in the 1850s, cataloging the plantlife growing on the Colosseum. Some of it was quite exotic, the seeds having been brought there with the wild animals for the circuses. Now the place is well hosed with weedkiller.

Ruins of such antiquity are not found in my area of the world, apart from Indian mounds. But wherever you live, a book like this will cause you to gaze at your surroundings with a keener eye for the past.

To be honest, I am surprised that a book like this was even able to find a publisher. An extended essay on the quirky subject of ruins is not something that I think would stand out as a potential bestseller in an editor's eyes. Fortunately, someone took the chance and we have access to this interesting little book.

In it, Woodward takes us through the subject of ruins. Not only ruins we can still see today but also ruins that have disappeared over time. Not only physical ruins but also ruins that can be seen in and have influenced art and literature both classic and modern. Not only an objective account of the formation and impact of the ruin but also his visceral impressions and those of other observers both famous and not.

One wouldn't think there was enough about ruins to fill 250 pages but this book proves that misconception false. In fact, there is a lot here that I wasn't aware of or didn't give much thought to before. For example, I tend to think of ruins in the classical sense (such as Roman or Greek ruins) but Woodward also discusses the effect dealing with the ruins of recent wars (in particular, WWII) has had on people. He also discusses the trend in vogue a few hundred years ago towards the wealthy actually building ruins as objects d'arte on their estates. I never realized that some of the ruins one can see while traveling through England and France were in reality artificially created.

Anyone who has ever marveled at the Colosseum or Parthenon, anyone who has ever meditated inside the crumbling walls of an old abbey, anyone who has ever wondered about that abandoned house down the street, anyone who has read Shelly's The Last Man or been shocked by the final frames of Planet of the Apes, will find something of value in Woodward's pages.

Here is the best description of the fascination of ruins that I have ever read. It is full of surprises and wonderful illustrations. There is nothing little about the spirit of this book - Woodward writes beautifully and has a perfect grasp of the sublime aesthetics of fine ruins. The reader is swept through a wide range of time, and of time periods, from antiquity to the present day. All throughout are marvelous, pithy descriptions - a super book !!

Although I figured out why the murder was committed and by whom, I didn't work out how until the end of the book. As usual Morse was knocking back the beer, flirting in his subtle way and actually got a "little"!!! bit friendly with a suspect. A good read.

The only thing really wrong with Morse is that he smokes too much. If you want a really good read in your mysteries, here it is.

If you like to be kept guessing this is the novel for you. It is also fun to read about the interaction between Morse and Lewis. These two deserve each other.

This book is an excellent tool for novices of the game. It gives chapters about the positions and techniques of the game and could be very helpul if you are learning lacrosse. It is also a resourceful tool as a coach (of kids under about 14) and gives pointers on all aspects of the game. If you have been playing lacrosse for a while you may want to look to another source for information about the game, although this book would be somewhat entertaining.

This book helped me out a lot. I play goalie and defense and this book has very helpful sections on both postitions. My firends and I brought this to our team practice and our coach read it and said that he will use all of the drills given to help us out. This is a very good buy and i reccomend it to every beginning and advanced player out there.

Hey, I'm a 14 year old all county state and divios player and sting attack/ meddie for the chappaqua cross fire. i hily sagest you ording this book. 3 years ago this book got me into to the game. i had the skills but not the rules down. it was fun to read and i still look back at it. email me i always luv to talk about lacrosse. hell ya my email is bballjg87@aol.com and title it lax stuff. thanxs great book and good luck