Everyone has experienced the hell of celebrating the holidays with your relatives. Depression rages, a family wishes to forget the anniversary of a loved one's death, and couples reach the boiling point of their relationships. It's just the typical Thanksgiving dinner at Jack Fletcher's sister-in-law's. Douglas Hobbie's novel, "The Day," vividly etches the story of a fractured New England family attempting to hold it together long enough to eat the turkey. Jack Fletcher is married to Gwen, and they have two children: a daughter Kate and a son Sam. Tensions mount as they drive towards his sister-in-law's home. Jack wants to talk about Gwen's sister Clare but she wants to avoid the subject. Jack flashes back to a carefree time, when he and Gwen had sex in the car. For Jack and Gwen, those carefree times are in the past. There is a distinct chasm between them that neither wants to cross. Something has come between them on this particular Thanksgiving day. Jack mourns the death of his sister-in-law Clare, who died a year ago. His wife Gwen wants to avoid the topic. So does every other family member. The anniversary of Clare's death permeates the holiday dinner as each individual tries to get through the Thanksgiving dinner without dealing with the tragedy. Hobbie's dialogue achingly recreates the psychological aspects of a family's reaction to a death: the anger, the denial, the avoidance. Hobbie writes such convincing interaction between the characters that we feel like we are eavesdropping upon conversation. The dialogue is that on target. Hobbie's young daughter shortly before he started this novel and his real-life tragedy unfortunately provided him with the emotional resonance that tinges every page of The Day. Hobbie has also constructed the novel like a mystery. We meet characters but their relationship to the others is not always explained right away. The author drops seemingly insignificant details into the story only to come back to them at a later time to explain their significance. This device is extremely effective and creates an intriguing puzzle surrounding the death of Clare and why everyone is reluctant to discuss it. Hobbie's use of Jack, also referred to as Fletcher, as the focal point of the story provides the reader the opportunity to see the Wells family from a semi-objective point of view. Jack has never been truly admitted into the Wells family. He views his in-laws with a razor-sharp clarity that could only be achieved by outsider status. Jack does not have the emotional bond that the others possess. He and Gwen are barely hiding their contempt for one another and he has no kind feelings for his wife's family. He is the foe who has crossed enemy lines in order to pretend to be a happy husband and father. Jack and his sister-in-law Penny do not have a warm relationship.

Jack sees her incessant need to create a perfect environment for herself and her kids. She must make everyone and everything into a neat, little processed package for consumption. Penny is married to the vapid Peter who buys and sells for a living and carries his job--and life's obsession--over into his personal life. Peter's killer business instinct has financially destroyed Jack, who entered into an ill-fated business deal with him. Peter flatly refuses to accept responsibility for ruining Jack's family and plunging them into an economic depression. Peter bulldozes everyone within the family by purchasing their affection and allegiance. Penny even rebelled against her husband's emotional abuse. She abandoned her husband and child to spend a few days in a hotel but she eventually came back to make Thanksgiving dinner. While she was running way, she made up a list of groceries she needed for the meal. Penny can not even rebel without betraying her perfectionist ways. Jack is also rebelling. He tries to get the Wells family to talk about Clare's death. He suffers from immense pain due to her death. Clare was not just his sister-in-law; she was his ideal lover. She was the free-spirited social crusader who touched Jack at his deepest core. Clare withdrew from the Wells family and made a life for herself and her son Noah that did not include any from her family. She did not set out to distance herself from the family but the family could not tolerate her "otherness." Unlike her other kin, Clare reveals true passion for something other than herself. She runs from the Wells family to be more at piece with herself and nature. She can't survive the toxic environment of her family. She has never forgiving her mother for disbelieving her claims of abuse at the hands of an uncle. Clare had suffered from repressed memories and we finally confronted the family with the truth, she was labeled a liar and a troublemaker. These allegations have hermetically sealed the Wells family in a self-imposed silence. Penny wants to hide the dirty little secret to protect the "appearance" of the family. Curly, Clare's father, is so oblivious to his family that he shows more interest in the creation of outer space. His wife Patricia plays the martyred mother role so effectively that she aggravates everyone around her especially Jack. Hobbie's leisurely dissection of this New England family forces us as readers to make connections to our own life. This makes for an often wrenching read. In "The Day," Douglas Hobbie has created one of the finest contemporary works of fiction and one of the best novels of this or any year.

The overseers were remarkable and there idea to give Keill knew bones was very interesting. The deathwing agent fights were very exciting and the clones were very interesting also. The Starwind was a little confusing to me. I wasn't sure why the planets just didn't collide or why the other planet didn't float away. The whole series was very good and I would like to know if there is a movie on it. If there is then I will go and see it If there is not then I would like one to be made. This series has inspired me to maybe write my own book someday!

This is an expensive item, and it obviously is not for everyone. That said, it is a valuable work and should be considered an adjunct to Fraser's "Works of George Berkeley." In Jesseph's book, he presents two of Berkeley's essays - "De Motu", and "The Analyst", to which he provides extensive introductions and references. Both essays (and Jesseph's supporting material) will be reviewed in turn.

"De Motu" (On Motion) was originally written in Latin. Jesseph's first service is that he provides an English translation along with the Latin version. In this essay, Berkeley described and critiqued then-contemporary theories on the nature of motion. Jesseph does the reader a great service by introducing 17th century physics to the reader, explaining terms, and tracking down Berkeley's references.

What makes "De Motu" something other than a period piece is Berkeley's methodology. In "A Treatise Concerning the Principals of Human Knowledge", Berkeley laid out an argument against terms denoting entities which could not be experienced or imagined. An example of such a thing was Newton's absolute space. In "De Motu", Berkeley wrote:

"And so let us imagine that all bodies have been destroyed and reduced to nothing. What remains they call absolute space, all relation which arose from the position and distances of bodies having been removed along with the bodies themselves. Now this space is infinite, immobile, indivisible, insensible, without relation and without distinction. That is, all of its attributes are privative and negative: it seems therefore to be merely nothing. ... Therefore let us take from absolute space just the words, and nothing will remain in the sense, imagination, or intellect; therefore they designate nothing, except pure privation or negation, that is, merely nothing."

While Berkeley granted that such terms could be useful in calculation, he argued that they led only to meaningless wrangling when imagined as real. He held up a difference between Newton and Torricelli on force as an example:

"Newton says that impressed force consists solely in action, and it is the action exerted on a body to change its state, nor does it remain after the action. Torricelli contends that a certain accumulation or aggregate of impressed forces is received by percussion in a mobile body, and that the same remains and constitutes impetus. ... And in truth, though Newton and Torricelli seem to disagree, nevertheless, each advances a consistent account, and the matter is adequately explained by both. For all forces attributed to bodies are ... mathematical hypotheses. Mathematical entities, however, have no stable essence in the nature of things: they depend on the notion of the definer: whence the same thing can be explained in different ways."

In sum, "De Motu" is valuable both as a general critique of science and as a fascinating application of Berkeley's epistimological ideas and is well worth reading on that basis.

The other Berkeley essay Jesseph covers is "The Analyst". This essay attacked the soundness of the mathematical foundations of Newton's calculus. Because Newton's notation, method, and terminology are no longer in use, the essay is difficult for the modern reader to follow. Jesseph's introduction to "The Analyst" is a fine piece of scholarship and immensely helpful, even necessary, to full understanding of Berkeley's essay.

"The Analyst" was motivated by apologetic purposes. Berkeley was annoyed at the contrast set up by "free thinkers" between religious belief and math and the sciences, and he sought to demonstrate that mathematics has its mysteries as much as religion. His target was Newton's calculus: in particular, fluxions. Fluxions were infinitesimal quantities, which Berkeley attacked as being literally inconceivable, following his general principals of meaning, and further that Newton did not handle them consistently - sometimes rounding them to zero, and other times not, with the only criterion being whichever was necessary to make the answers come out right.

"The Analyst" set off a firestorm among mathemeticians. Berkeley's acid style led to angry responses, but the mathematical problems Berkeley had attacked were real, and the defenders of Newton offered very different (and incompatible) approaches to resolving the problems Berkeley had raised, and they soon began attacking each other. It was only in the nineteeth century that the problems surrounding the foundations of Calculus were finally settled.

Certainly, "The Analyst" is of interest as a part of the history of mathematics, but it is also of interest as an application of Berkeley's general approach. The paragraph below on infinitesmals, for example, clearly follows the same approach as that on absolute space quoted previously:

"Now to conceive a Quantity infinitely small, that is, infinitely less than any sensible or imaginable Quantity, or than the least finite Magnitude, is, I confess, above my Capacity. But to conceive a Part of such infinitely small Quantity, that shall be infinitely less than it, and consequently though multiply'd infinitely shall never equal the minutest finite Quantity, is, I suspect, an infinite Difficulty to any man whatsoever...Nothing is easier to devise Expressions or Notations, for Fluxions and Infinitesimals of the first, second, third, fourth and subsequent Orders, proceeding in the same regular form without end or limit ... dx, ddx, dddx, ddddx, &c. These Expressions indeed are clear and distinct, and the Mind finds no difficulty in conceiving them to be continued beyond any assignable Bounds. But if we remove the Veil and look underneath, if laying aside the Expressions we set ourselves attentively to consider the things themselves, which are supposed to be expressed or marked thereby, we shall discover much Emptiness, Darkness, and Confusion..."

The last thing worth noting about "The Analyst" is that Berkeley wrote two follow-on essays in response to Newton's defenders, both of which are available in Fraser's "Works".

After discovering Roy Hart in "A Pretty Place for A Murder"
and "Fox in the Night", both enjoyable British police procedurals, I looked for others by him and came across "A Deadly
Schedule", apparently his most recent. While the previous two were good, this one was outstanding - a real page-turner. Inspector Roper encounters a murder in Crete while on holiday and tries, with difficulty, to remain detached. Upon returning
home to Dorset, however, two more murders crop up and of course
the reader suspects a connection. Motives remain elusive, and
red herrings abound, but it all comes together nicely in the end.
Woven through the story is the inspector's growing relationship
with Sheila Carmody (whom he met in Crete) and surprisingly (!)
she lives near him in Dorset. In previous books he seemed a
confirmed bachelor, but now he seems vulnerable ... which makes
him more likeable. This is Hart at his best, I hope he has
written another since 1996 as he is getting better and better.

Dear Donna It's only 45 Hours from Bien Hoa by Douglas Neralich is the gut-wrenching personal account of his year in Vietnam. An elementary school teacher turned Army medic, Douglas was only twenty-two when called to serve his country as part of the 36th Engineer Battalion, stations at Vinh Long, in Vietnam in 1970. The vignettes presented are both gripping and horrifying, sometimes gentle, sometimes cruel, and taken altogether form an unforgettable picture of the war in this engaging memoir. Enhanced with occasional pencil sketches, Dear Donna It's only 45 Hours from Bien Hoa is a welcome and recommended contribution to Vietnam Military History collections and reading lists.

"Dear General MacArthur" is a wonderful and very illuminating compilation of letters written by the Japanese to Gen. MacArthur during the American Occupation (1945-1952). Sodei's running commentary alongside the letters is full of powerful insight and helpful explanations which allow the reader to genuinely understand how, and why the Japanese wrote the General with their praise, adoration, pleas, and criticism regarding him and the occupation. It is a "must" read for any who are interested in, or are students of Japanese culture. The letters are moving, incredible, sad, and hilarious. Never in world history did a country ever "love" MacArthur as much as the Japanese did after WWII. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning and illustrious historian of Japan, John W. Dower notes in his foreword, "This is a rare gem of a book. We have nothing else like it concerning Japan." Compiled and expounded by the foremost authority on, and biographer of MacArthur, it is a book that all should enjoy.

Departures is a short novella written from the perspective of a yound boy struggling with the problems of coming of age in one of the most turbulent periods in our nation's history. The problems of sibling rivalry, victorian parents, and a brewing world war combine within the setting of a small midwestern town. This is a sentimental story, of first loves, growing up, and leaving childhood behind.

I didn't read the book, but hey, we flips need all we need in terms of literature. so i recommend it to all

Douglas Bailey tells a tale of a small southern town's growth that's nurtured and poisoned by the virtues and vices of one of its own strong men, Buck Bannon.

At 18, Buck leaves his farm-dwelling family to seek out what opportunities await him in nearby Aven. With nothing but a shirt on his back and the will to never plow land again, Buck wheels and deals his way into the upper echelons this new town.

The story is fictional, but seems to have some basis in fact. For example, Aven is really Dothan, Alabama -- Douglas Bailey's hometown.

Also, one of the secondary characters, Tobe Parody, one of Buck's law officers, is certainly a "parody" of Tobe Domingus, a tax-enforcing, gun-slinging marshal who ruled Dothan in the late 1800s.

I enjoyed this book on many levels and especially liked the colorful colloquialisms that I'd never heard, growing up in the south myself.

I also liked the way Buck made his own way and lived by his own rules without excuses or remorse while simultaneously questioning his own motives and treatment of others.

The only part of the story I didn't like was the fact that Buck's selfishness kept him from meeting his only son. But Buck was not perfect, far from it in fact, and didn't claim or try to be anyone but himself -- human.

If you are interested on the Crimean Campaign, even mildly, and like such novels as Sharpe etc. , those are a series who are quite good on his own. The context/tapestry is complete, the prose and emotion not quite level with Sharpe, but the secondaries (and I mean the fictional characters other then "Fancy Jack") are probably superior to Cornwell's in the aspect as been less caricaturesque and more varied.
This is the first book on the series and it's better to read them in order as subplots tend to evolve from one book to another.
If you love the XIXth century as a background for fiction A MUST HAVE.