This book gives a thorough explanation of the troops and equipment used during the Persian Gulf War and the build up to the war. The authors dig to find the most accurate numbers. Also give expert analysis on the Iraqi army and coalition forces in terms of diplomacy and experience. Also good background on the history of the region. I give the book an A.

I took this guide on a first time visit to San Antonio and found it invaluable. Not only was it up to date with info on the latest hotels, attractions, and restaurants, but it contains lots of asides containing interesting information on the different sites that added to our enjoyment at visiting these sites. A first rate job!

Fur Magic is a fantasy novel based on the legends of the North American Indians. In the tales of the Nez Perce, and other tribes, the Changer is a great power who has the ability to shape things. Often called the Trickster, the Changer delights in confounding others with his changes. Long ago, the Old People, sapient oversized animals, ruled the world, but then the Changer made mankind and changed everything.

In this story, Cory Adler is a Floridan boy whose father has been assigned to Viet Nam by the Army and whose mother is taking care of his grandmother in San Francisco. An old Army buddy of his father, Uncle Jasper, has invited Cory to stay on his ranch while his parents are away and Cory looks forward to it with great anticipation. Yet the actual experience is much more frightening than he expects; the horses are big and buck him off, the animals have sharp teeth and claws, and the night is filled with strange noises.

The day after his unsuccessful attempt to ride a horse, Uncle Jasper takes him up to an old line cabin in the high country and leaves him there while the adults ride off to inspect the young horses. Cory agrees to wait for Black Elk, an old indian shaman, to arrive at the cabin and then to phone for a jeep to carry the old man to the main house. Cory is willing, as long as he doesn't have to ride a horse, and soon starts to explore the surrounding area. He accidentally falls into a shallow hole and breaks a basket and a turtleshell rattle within the hollow. He takes a leather bag back to the cabin to get a better look at it, but decides it is a medicine pouch and replaces it within the broken basket.

While exploring some more, he notices brown shapes moving around on a distance hillside and uses his binoculars to resolve the image into three buffalo, two adults and a calf. Moreover, he sees a man wearing an animal skin, possibly coyote, dancing close to the animals while carrying a decorated stick and a turtleshell rattle. He is held motionless by fear, but manages to drop the binoculars, which frees his muscles. Still terrified, he nonetheless runs toward the site where he has seen the buffalo and the man, but only tracks remain of the animals and man.

When he returns to the cabin, he finds an old indian man sitting motionless by the firepit. He asks the old man if he is Black Eagle and is finally answered with a bare acknowledgment. Cory makes a meal in the firepit for the old man, who eats everything given to him and Cory's portion as well. Afterwards, the old man pulls out a leather bag, the same medicine pouch that Cory had returned to the basket, throws some dust on the fire that causes a steady stream of smoke to rise above it, and insists that Cory has done wrong and must purify himself by holding the pouch in the smoke. When Cory complies, he is transported into the mind of an oversized beaver named Yellow Shell.

Cory thinks that he is in an exceptionally vivid dream, but cannot awaken. His mind accompanies Yellow Shell as he fights against marauding minks and clever crows which are minions of the Changer. He even meets the Changer face to face and is able to fight back and find a way to return to his own body. Moreover, he is now able to overcome his fears.

This story may be the earliest of the author's tales involving the legends and people of the tribes. Other works influenced by these traditions include the Beast Master series, The Sioux Spaceman, and The Defiant Agents. These tales of indian ways have been very influential to many young people through the years, possibly including Jane Lindskold, author of Changer and the Firekeeper series, which contain some of these same images.

This novel is intended for young people, but like her other juveniles, is also enjoyable to an old man like me.

Recommended for Norton fans and anyone who enjoys simple tales of exotic folks and heroic quests.

this book edited by joe austin is a comprehensive selection from some very fine scholars on the subject of youth culture. some of the topics include such misunderstood cutlures as graffiti writers, skateboarders, zoot suiters, double dutch girls and so on. These authors are committed to the articulation of these cultures from the perspective of the participants rather than using youth culture as a jumping off point fo r theoretical meandering. This is a great introduction to the field and will be of interest to both scholars and general readers.

Though small and unassuming, this little book packs a wallop in its thorough discussion of the miracle of Jesus' birth in its historical context.

Ms. Austin discusses the political background of the times, Jewish customs and traditions, and even angelic appearances. The writing is crisp, fascinating, and authoritative without ostentation. Scriptural cites are used throughout. I especially enjoyed bits of original verse that the author includes in several chapters. The book can be read in just a few short sittings, although I found it difficult to put down once beginning.

I originally picked up a copy at a used book store and it has been such a blessing to me that I read it annually close to Christmas. I am thrilled to find it available at Amazon and plan to share copies with friends and family this year.

And finally, if you would like to read a scholarly, plausible discussion of exactly what the "star of Bethlehem" might have been, you will not want to miss this book. The book is well worth reading for that discussion alone.

Glacier Ice is a comprehensive survey which is both well-written and extensively illustrated. It is easy to read, but mastery of its contents would take considerable time and effort. So it is suited to a broad range of audience. Even a beginner with an interest in the subject would be able to get a good deal out of this book. Because the writing is straightforward and assumes nothing about the reader's expertise. And because Glacier Ice contains many photographs which are specifically presented to illustrate topics being discussed in the text.

For those who have spent time walking glacial surfaces in a state of awe and wonder, this book will answer all the questions that kept arising as you moved about in that supernal world. And it will clarify in detail the terms that you have heard tossed about but which needed further definition in your mind. Like moraine, for example. Which is a deceptively simple concept, but turns out to have tremendous explanatory power when it comes to the geophysics of landscape formation. In this regard, I had once been told that Long Island was a terminal moraine. Reading Glacier Ice rendered that nugget of information viable. I now have a picture in my mind's eye of just how the one-hundred mile-long land mass came into being.

One of the most visually dramatic surface features of glaciers is the multiple median moraines that form like layer cake when several ice flow tributaries converge into an ice field of gigantic proportion. Glacier Ice includes a number of photographs of this phenomena and an explanation for its occurrence. As with other aspects of glacier morphology taken up in this monograph, after a few moments time you can begin to picture vividly the way in which the forces at work between ice and rock would produce the effect you are studying.

One thing I particularly liked about Glacier Ice is that it was written with the mountain climber in mind. Thus descriptions of various glacier features are often accompanied by comments on the type of challenge the feature in question poses to the adventurer attempting to traverse it. This brought a topic of vastness down to human dimensions and I thought it a nice touch in what is essentially a textbook about the intersection of the force of gravity as it meets up with frozen water and rock.

Finally, a book that captures stories in the from of "treasures" to be passed down for generations to come. I have yet to see a book like this in which writers, some well known and others not, share their grandmother story. It is a window to days past, filled with life instructions and wisdom that we can use in our lives today to nuture our own soul. The editor, Jane Austin Bruckner, shows us how influenced we are by our grandmothers, even after they are long gone. What I found personally inspiring is the section on how to write your own grandmother story. I hadn't considered that before. Thank you!

Being born and bred in the area detailed in this history, I naturally enjoyed it. I have referred to it countless times, both recreationally and in times when I needed to secure certain facts. It has a layout unlike those found in today's reference books, but one not unusual for the time in which it was written. Included are several wonderful pictures of life in the 1800's of Xenia, Beavercreek, Spring Valley, etc. The pictures range from storefronts, main streets, grain elevators, trains, schools, and churches to historical markers and countryside scenes. Descriptions and dates are given for nearly all the illustrations, which adds to the value of this historical book. Anyone interested in Greene County, Ohio for personal and/or research reasons would benefit greatly from the reading of Greene County, 1803-1908.

"When I got to the end of St. Matthias Gap, I would stand for a while and watch the drug store. The large bottles of glass that contained 'sweets' medicines and pills of all sorts of toughness and strength and sweetness."

Nobody does it better than Mr. Austin 'Tom' Clarke. Nobody can
take us back into those long ago times with literature so touching, so real, so magical, so painful, so peaceful and picturesque, and yet so lovely.

For Austin 'Tom' Clarke is a man for all seasons and beneath his humour and fun-poking there is a depth and intensity that makes his story so very arresting and captivating. I must say this book stimulated my mind to such an extent that it was not always easy to put it down just for a few moments. Giving an autobiographical account of his life as a youngster, we venture with him into his life at Combermere and how the school system worked at the time. Latin was a favourite with Clarke and his friends but unfortunately not having the money for the text books the information had to be handwritten from the textbooks of one of the privileged boys. Even for Scripture lessons when one would have thought that there would have been so many Bibles in the island, some guys had to write out Acts Of the Apostles in long hand. It was during wartime and things were terrible scarce and jobs hard to come by. Most of the people in the village worked for the Whites doing domestic work or at the Marine hotel in the same capacity. So it was the norm to emulate everything English.....studying English history, society and manners. After all the country was under Colonial control and Barbadians would have it no other way. They knew no other way.

Mr. Clarke doesn't fail to humour us as he recounts his days in the St. Michael's Cathedral or throw us into a fit of nostalgia as he reminisces of the Brilliantine shining on his hair the first day at Combermere......so real you can actually feel the broiling hot sun and smell the sweet hairdressing grease running down his youthful neck.

One of the things I loved about Austin Clarke's book came towards the end. He describes in detail his many walks on sunny afternoons along Hastings main road when the sun scorched the bottom of his feet leaving tar marks on the surface. He describes how quiet the area was in those days, with hardly anyone walking the streets or any vehicular traffic. He would always walk slowly as he approached the drug store for that was one of his favourite places where he stood outside and surveyed the place, looking at the sweets on display and inhaling the various potent medicines and of course the Lysol. The ever-faithful Lysol would always be wafting in the atmosphere; then as you extended your eyes towards the back of the store, there would be the druggist in white, and the sea gleaming in the background. Clarke embraced a kind of peace in these surroundings.....a peace real tangible to my mind.

I would encourage all literature lovers to read this book and compare those old time days to the times we're living in now. The diversity in the culture and the innocence of what it was really like living under British rule.

In fact, this is a book for everyone.

Reviewed by Heather P. Marshall 11-03-03

Hector Visits His Country Cousin is a cleverly written and presented children's story about a city bat who learns more about life in the country from his experienced cousin. Charming, humorous black-and-white illustrations bring to life an entertaining and engaging story filled throughout with tidbits about bat life and survival. A superb storybook for young folks, Hector Visits His Country Cousin is enthusiastically recommended for family, school, and community library collections.