Edward Bailey commands the field of "plain English" applied to business writing. This is a complete, modern--and highly readable--summary of everything you need to know about writing memo's letters and resumes and doing oral presentations. It lacks a section on e-mail. The resume and cover letter sections use examples which may not match for all industries, and the letter format (showing "Writer/typist") is outdated in the Internet Age.

Want to improve your writing? Want to improve your presentation skills? There's not a better book on the shelves! A must if your serious about your career. In only hours, your writing will improve -- colleagues will notice.

Clockwork is the first book that I've read by the author Philip Pullman. It is also the first book I've read in a fairytale style. At first I thought I wouldn't enjoy Clockwork because I usually don't read fairytales, but once I got into it, I started to enjoy it! It was scary, and I like scary stories. It was also very complex, a sort of story inside a story inside a story - if you know what I mean. I recommend this book for older kids. My favorite part is when Fritz the writer is reading his story.

I had to read this one before I read it to my kids. I would suggest 9+ in years before reading it as it is somewhat scary and dark. Nonetheless it is a good, well written, and complex story which works forwards and then backwards and leaves the reader wondering what was real and what is not. For those Harry Potter fans looking for a quick book to tide them over - I would highly recommend this one. It certainly is true to its title.

Great book. Very creepy, with some great suspense. The illustrations are beautiful and very appropriate. Some readers have pointed out that the characters are underdeveloped--yes, they are, but that's not at all a fault, as this is a story in the style of folktales, where the characters aren't meant to be fully developed. They don't have to be. All of you who were enchanted by Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy will want to check this out. It's an entertaining quick read, and it will satisfy your hunger for more Philip Pullman books.

Members of our book club recently read this book. One member liked that all the women met without regard for personal or political differences. Another member would love to be invited to one of the dinner meetings (...). The description (p. 144) of the priorities of the women senators impressed another member. "Not compelling, but intermittantly inspirational", commented yet another member. One member wished that the biographies for each senator were compiled in one chapter rather than the current "bits-and-pieces" format. In addition, she would have appreciated the cover photos identified so that stories could've been matched to people. The final member was inspired to run for the school board. The afterword (in the latest addition) was a nice addition which showed the current dynamics of the Senate.

The Senate has long been characterized as the Old Boy's Club, a place where the political process is insulated from the pressures of cultural change. The nine women currently holding seats in the Senate have been, in very diverse ways, part of the winds of change that have swept through the American legislature. Nine and Counting chronicles the personal and political travails and triumphs of these extraordinary women. Though they come from very different backgrounds, they are consistently advocates for their constituents and have been important role models for women who are committed to public life. The book's narrative thrust is aided by skillful commentary from Catherine Whitley, interwoven with personal stories and comments from each of the Senators. The book is easy to read and steers away from explicitly political agendas or advocacy, instead focusing on the realities of women's lives and the importance of bringing diverse voices, male and female, Democrat and Republican, to the legislative process. As a young woman in politics, I found it fun and, in its own way, inspirational.

The nine extraordinary women of the United states Senate have collaborated with writer Catherine Whitney to present an informative and absorbing read. Following the lives of all of the women who've served, Nine & Counting intermingles the fascinating personal stories of each of the nine women currently holding office. This is the greatest number ever to serve at the same time. And that's the point. The women of the Senate want to inspire others to join them. The first woman Senator, the formidable Rebecca Felton of Georgia, was appointed as a token gesture, and allowed to serve only one day in 1922. And it was stunning to be reminded once again that women didn't have the right to vote until 1920. Political offcie for a woman was a rare accomplishment. Dedicated to the Girl Scout Organization, with all proceeds from the sale of the book going to them, Nine and Counting is a lot of fun to read. It was obviously written to inspire young women to emulate today's nine women Senators, to show them what courage and perseverance can accomplish. And that's exactly what it does. An entertaining, enjoyable read, it should become a lasting part of the historical record of this great nation.

"Year of Wonders" tells the story of Anna, an 18 year old mother-of-two, who lives to witness a horrible period in England's history: the Plague. In the period of one year, she watches as her friends, neighbors and family succumb to this horrible disease. The novel is as much about the Plague as it is about the struggle of mankind to survive in the face of such overwhelming horror.

I'm extremely fascinated by the plague, so I found the subject matter of the book captivating. I also thought the historical research was impeccable. The way Brooks described life in a small village in the 17th century was enchanting. The characterization was good, for the most part, as well. I also really liked the ending.

However, I disliked the writing style. It was flowery, poetic, lyrical, but too much so. I found that reading "Year of Wonders" took a lot of my concentration, and I found myself easily bored by the flowery descriptions. I also had a hard time keeping track of all the villagers. There were so many names mentioned in passing, and when they were brought up again chapters later, it was hard to remember who the person was, and why they were important.

Unfortunately, I also didn't like any of the characters very much. I was unable to relate to Anna. She seemed too modern at times, while other times she would cower in fear at the slightest threat. For a "strong" heroine, her character traits were surprising and unrealistic. Elinor seemed like the incarnation of a saint. She was utterly perfect, and once again, unrealistic. Mr. Mompellion rubbed me the wrong way from the start, and it became increasingly clear to me that I didn't like him at all as the book drew to a close. At least his actions and dark side are explained.

If you're looking for a light-hearted novel, this isn't it. I would recommend it only for those who enjoy flowery descriptions and poetic language, and are drawn to the subject of the plague.

"Year of Wonders", by Geraldine Brooks. Audio Cassette version read by Josephine Bailey, Books on Tape/Penguin Putnam, Inc. Book Number 5708

Set in England, in1665-1666, this book recounts in vivid detail the effects of the plague on a little village whose main industry is lead mining. On one level, it is entirely too detailed account of how so many people sickened and died from the plague, spread by rodents and their fleas. On another level, it is a love story of the village minister and his wife, Eleanor. On a third level, it is a story of the achievements of the young housemaid, Anna, who becomes the central character recoding the events of the "Year of Wonders".

The minister's wife, Eleanor, recognizes the intellectual ability of the recently widowed Anna, and begins to teach her reading and writing. Anna's husband had died in a lead mine cave-in. The young minister, who takes the place of the older Puritan cleric, preaches a sermon which causes the village population to quarantine themselves after they discover they are infected with plague. During this year of quarantine, Anna, the housewife, grows from a simple village girl, (who suffered the loss of husband and then her two sons), into an established mid-wife, with a knowledge of medicinal herbs, the ability to ease both child birth and the birthing of lambs, and a the ability to understand the motives of so many of her neighbors.

In some ways, this book is too gory: the details of the birthing of both lambs and children are far too vivid. The details of the death of Anna's father, as punishment for cheating his neighbors when he dug the graves for the dead, are too vivid. And, the attempt to drown the newborn daughter of Lady Bradford is described too vividly. Some of this I ascribe to the ability of the reader, Josephine Bailey, whose skill in making you see and feel the scene is a wonder in itself. Ms. Bailey, the reader for the audio book, has a wide vocal range, so that you can almost hear the preacher exhorting the villagers to establish their self-imposed quarantine. I enjoyed the book as I commuted around I-495, the ring road around Boston.

"Book of Wonders" is everything a historical novel should be. It is based upon the true events of a small village which isolated itself with the outbreak of plague; it has finely drawn and believable characters; and the writing is of a style that you could almost imagine it was really written at the time (please don't let this latter point put you off - the writing is not in any way archaic, as is often the trend these days).

It is also however, profoundly sad, and I found myself weeping with the characters at their loss in an early part of the novel. I always think that is is a powerful book that can make you laugh or cry.

The story of the people of this small village and their trials and tribulations in this terrible time is absolutely mesmerising. We watch them cling to their faith in God, and then turn to earlier more earthy superstitions to help them deal with the wave of death that has struck so many of them down. We also watch the development of the narrator from a simple village girl who thirsts for knowledge into the strong character she is by the end of the novel.

Some of the earlier reviewers have commented that the end seems a little pat, almost as if the author wanted to finish the book and be done with it. I must admit that it doesn't finish the way I would have liked it to, but having said that, I truly do not believe that it in any way takes away from the mastery of the book.

It is a fascinating, well written and well researched book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Covert Bailey remains a strong proponent of the fitness-health connection, and is an entertaining writer. Overall this book is pretty good. There are several pieces of misinformation though:
1. He makes the common "low intensity exercise" mistake of depicting fat-burning vs sugar-burning as a black and white issue. At higher exercise intensity levels, you don't suddenly switch to burning sugar instead of fat, you just burn a higher percentage of calories from sugar. But since you are also burning more total calories, you'll burn more fat than when exercising at lower intensities, AND burn more sugar. Further, higher intensity exercise leaves the metabolism higher so continues to burn calories after exercise (he mentioned this effect for weight lifting but missed it for other types of anaerobic exercise).
2. In addition to his incorrect prejudice against swimming (mentioned by another reviewer), he also incorrectly states that bicycling burns little fat. At slow speeds bicycling is comparable to walking in rate of calorie (and fat) burning, at higher speeds it is comparable to running. Just check any of the calorie calculators on the web to confirm this.
3. I think he is still missing one of the main points of the value of weight lifting, which is to reverse the continual muscle loss that occurs with aging in sedentary people.

Covert Bailey has finished off his Fit Or Fat series with The Ultimate Fit or Fat. This small book, only $11, quite adequately summarizes what you need know to achieve fitness and escape fatness, Bailey's quest for over 20 years now.

Covert has always been keen on the physiology of fat burning, especially in the role of fat-burning enzymes. He covers these in more detail in some of his earlier works but summarizes by advising that aerobic exercise should be "gentle enough so that the muscle burns fat rather than sugar," but "hard enough to stimulate the growth of new fat-burning enzymes.

The basic enhancement of fat burning enzymes takes place during and after exercise, as they replenish muscle tissue's stores of glycogen, sugar ready to be used. He reminds us that when we exercise aerobically, such as in fast walking, we best stimulate fat burning enzymes and with them, fat loss. But he also again makes the point that even better conditioning and fat burning may be accomplished with wind sprints, simple sub-minute bursts of greater exertion. Wind sprints are defined as short bursts of more intense activity, such as jogging for a walker or actually sprinting for a runner. He notes that it is in the recovery phase of these sprints where the most fat burning actually takes place.

Please check the actual book for guidelines, as these can be important depending on your age and condition before pushing up your intensity.

Nutrition, a topic vital to weight control, is little covered in this book and addressed better in earlier works, such as Fit or Fat Target Diet. He does admonish readers to stop "putting grease on top of your food." He focuses here instead on upping your metabolism with aerobic activity, wind sprints, weight training and cross conditioning. The book presents a complete set of weight lifting routines using your own body weight to provide resistance. He offers ways to calculate approximate body fat and determine heart rate for safe and effective exercise.

Covert Bailey converts your pace for covering a mile with moderate exertion into an interesting metric of your general health. He quite correctly shows how your ability to cover a mile in say, 12 minutes or nine minutes does give a strong indicator of your general health and well-being, physical condition, and body fat. As a side benefit, his focus on pace and the benefits of wind sprints can quickly lead one to move a bit faster during daily exercise.

All in all, this is an excellent volume for anyone plagued by overweight. Especially at a time when book stores are overflowing with questionable best sellers on food types and overweight, Covert Bailey's basic and well-stated grounding on our daily activities and fitness being the real cures of fatness have a renewed importance.

This is the greatest book ever written on exercise and fitness. Covert teaches you,in laymans term, how to get fit, how to burn fat, how to enjoy exercise and make it fun. I highly recommend is book to everyone. Because as Covert says exercise is for everyone and everybody.

Can memory of experience be stored in one's own DNA? Scientific disbelief has to be suspended big time, but if you can get over that, Saint holds together and is a pretty good read. Why would the recovered Peter's first words be in Latin? Wouldn't they be in Aramaic? The running lesson in Italian got a little tedious, like using "non" every time a simple "no" would do. The foreign language spices up a book, but I think it was just a little worked. It was obviously necessary for Peter to get up to speed quickly on the state of the world today, but I had a hard time buying his TV-Internet education. If editors today wouldn't insist on these shorter books, I'll bet Bailey could have developed the education of Peter in a more natural and believable way. The book should have been longer. Now that the author has one under his belt, maybe they'll give him some space for his next one. This is over all a good read. For those not aware of more liberal interpretations of these ideas about Jesus and the broader interpretatons of the gospels, this could be a nice entertaining introduction. Too bad Mark Bailey didn't bring back The Man himself.

This was a fun and interesting book, but flawed by a complete implausability. The science involved is unbelievable. Some issues are never addressed that need to be.. (Niko the chimp has Andrew's complete memory and personality, and one would assume, intelligence, yet he is ignored for the most part.) Some coincidences are so extreme they are laughable... (Peter just happens to arrive at Bethisda during an archeological dig of his hometown, which evidently was burried shortly after he left to follow Jesus, since he tells the archeoligists what they will find, and then, moments later! they do.) And finally it is never believable that Peter so rapidly becomes accustomed to 20th century life.

All the same, the book is fun reading, provided you aren't too put off by Bailey putting his beliefs into Saint Peter's mouth. If you like this book, you would enjoy "The Genesis Code" by John Case even more.

A most interesting starts out this wonderful tale of triumph and tragedy. If memory is genetic, in the way that eye color, etc. is, then why shouldn't science be able to extract the memories of a long dead person from their leftover DNA? Well, that is exactly what Dr. Andrew Shepard does in this exciting book by Mark Bailey. Shepard removes the DNA from the supposed bones of St. Peter (though Shepard does not know whose bones they are at the time) and transfers the memories into a volunteer. The result is phenomonal. The Apostle Simon Peter walks and breathes in the modern day world. The author, while obviously taking a small shot at the Catholic religion, portrays Peter in a fairly realistic manner. Though I, myself, would think a two thousand year old consciousness suddenly thrust into the modern world would take much more time to acclimatize itself, the Mr. Bailey's presentation of Peters responses to our world is, nonetheless, a staggering feat. I found myself looking forward to Peter's descriptions of life of Jesus and his comments on the Bible. Much of the information presented by Mr. Bailey seems quite plausible, even in a fiction book. I do think that the use of the Vatican as both friend and foe is a bit overused, but what can one do with a book so grounded in religious history and mythology. The book is well-written and the plot develops at a nice pace, though I would have liked to have had Peter introduced to us in a much earlier chapter, but one takes what one can get. Style and substance are never compromised by Mr. Bailey's use of humor to portray Peter as a "fish out of water." I would certainly recommend this book to everyone.

I first read Moby Dick; or The Whale over thirty years ago and I didn't understand it. I thought I was reading a sea adventure, like Westward Ho! or Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym. In fact, it did start out like an adventure story but after twenty chapters or so, things began to get strange. I knew I was in deep water. It was rough, it seemed disjointed, there were lengthy passages that seemed like interruptions to the story, the language was odd and difficult, and often it was just downright bizarre. I plodded through it, some of it I liked, but I believe I was glad when it ended. I knew I was missing something and I understood that it was in me! It wasn't the book; it was manifestly a great book, but I hadn't the knowledge of literature or experience to understand it.

I read it again a few years later. I don't remember what I thought of it. The third time I read it, it was hilarious; parts of it made me laugh out loud! I was amazed at all the puns Melville used, and the crazy characters, and quirky dialog. The fourth or fifth reading, it was finally that adventure story I wanted in the first place. I've read Moby Dick more times than I've counted, more often than any other book. At some point I began to get the symbolism. Somewhere along the line I could see the structure. It's been funny, awesome, exciting, weird, religious, overwhelming and inspiring. It's made my hair stand on end...

Now, when I get near the end I slow down. I go back and reread the chapters about killing the whale, and cutting him up, and boiling him down. Or about the right whale's head versus the sperm whale's. I want to get to The Chase but I want to put it off. I draw Queequeg with his tattoos in the oval of a dollar bill. I take a flask with Starbuck and a Decanter with Flask. Listen to The Symphony and smell The Try-Works. Stubb's Supper on The Cabin Table is a noble dish, but what is a Gam? Heads or Tails, it's a Leg and Arm. I get my Bible and read about Rachel and Jonah. Ahab would Delight in that; he's a wonderful old man. For a Doubloon he'd play King Lear! What if Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of The Whale? Would Fedallah blind Ishmael with a harpoon, or would The Pequod weave flowers in The Virgin's hair?

Now I know. To say you understand Moby Dick is a lie. It is not a plain thing, but one of the knottiest of all. No one understands it. The best you can hope to do is come to terms with it. Grapple with it. Read it and read it and study the literature around it. Melville didn't understand it. He set out to write another didactic adventure/travelogue with some satire thrown in. He needed another success like Typee or Omoo. He needed some money. He wrote for five or six months and had it nearly finished. And then things began to get strange. A fire deep inside fret his mind like some cosmic boil and came to a head bursting words on the page like splashes of burning metal. He worked with the point of red-hot harpoon and spent a year forging his curious adventure into a bloody ride to hell and back. "...what in the world is equal to it?"

Moby Dick is a masterpiece of literature, the great American novel. Nothing else Melville wrote is even in the water with it, but Steinbeck can't touch it, and no giant's shoulders would let Faulkner wade near it. Melville, The pale Usher, warned the timid: "...don't you read it, ...it is by no means the sort of book for you. ...It is... of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hausers. A Polar wind blows through it, & birds of prey hover over it. Warn all gentle fastidious people from so much as peeping into the book..." But I say if you've never read it, read it now. If you've read it before, read it again. Think Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Goethe, and The Bible. If you understand it, think again.

It's always dangerous to label a book as a "masterpiece": that word seems to scare away most readers and distances everyone from the substance of the book itself. Still, I'm going to say that this is the Greatest American Novel because I really think that it is--after having read it myself.

Honestly, Moby Dick IS long and looping, shooting off in random digressions as Ishmael waxes philosophical or explains a whale's anatomy or gives the ingredients for Nantucket clam chowder--and that's exactly what I love about it. This is not a neat novel: Melville refused to conform to anyone else's conventions. There is so much in Moby Dick that you can enjoy it on so many completely different levels: you can read it as a Biblical-Shakespearean-level epic tragedy, as a canonical part of 19th Century philosophy, as a gothic whaling adventure story, or almost anything else. Look at all the lowbrow humor. And I'm sorry, but Ishmael is simply one of the most likable and engaging narrators of all time.

A lot of academics love Moby Dick because academics tend to have good taste in literature. But the book itself takes you about as far from academia as any book written--as Ishmael himself says, "A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." Take that advice and forget what others say about it, and just experience Moby Dick for yourself.

Most readers of Moby Dick seem to praise it for the wrong reasons and some miss the boat completely.

Criticize all you want of Melville's scientific inaccuracy, wandering themes, or even his improper punctuation. The guy wrote this thing in a year - not enough time to refine it, and it was a book he knew would not sell.

Underneath a mess of useless whaling information and Ishmael's rambling are ideas and questions that most people don't dare think about. Unlike Charles Darwin, Galileo or the fearless Ahab, Melville hid safely behind his metaphors and guided the careful readers to draw their own conclusions without completely leading the way.

Let me explain.

While to Ishmael, Moby Dick is nature's wonder and to Starbuck is just a whale, to Ahab Moby Dick is God, with his infinite power.

There are some disturbing things in the universe begging for an explaination, such as why one person is rewarded with happyness while another punished in suffering. There are feel-good answers, like the idea that the score will be evened in the afterlife and there are humble answers, like the book of Job, which suggests that man has no right to complain or question God. Melville's Ahab takes this to another level when he asks why man needs to be God's puppets. Ahab is insulted by God's creation of man, letting man live in suffering, "with half a heart and half a lung".

The bewildered God-fearing masses will not comprehend the depth Melville trys to take them. This most important theme was written for the pursuit of truth, not happyness. This book is not for everyone, and a lot of chapters are better off skipped, but those with enough empathy for Melville will find an emotional and intellectual adventure.

This is an engaging story and so finely written that the reading is both effortless and seductive. After I had finished (that is, after drying my eyes and regaining my breath), I was amazed to realize how complex a plot it is considering how smoothly it is told. By far, it is the best book I have read in years.

The story starts on a summer day at a large country estate in pre-WWII England. For anyone who delights in the heady mix of intelligence, innocence and youthful imagination, the beginning is like eating rich chocolate: 13 year old Briony has written a play -- the references to Austen, Burney, and family performances within 18th century lore are abundant and perfect -- to be rehearsed and performed by her unwilling and displaced visiting cousins in order to celebrate her brother's return to home with his sophisticated friend. However, reheasals in the playroom for THE TRIALS OF ARABELLA (of course) do not run smoothly: the twins boys do not understand what is expected of them; there's tension between Briony and 15 year old Lola. During the hot summer afternoon, Briony looks out the window to see her older sister Cecilia and Robbie, the cleaning lady's son, having what looks like some kind of menacing (and intimate) interaction in the fountain. The rest of the day's events and mishaps play out without implication until nightfall when a real crime of a sexual nature occurs and Briony's overactive imagination and lack of sophistication lead her to make a accusation which results in genuine tragedy for everyone. Without revealing the entire plot and overwhelming descriptions of war and survival, Briny spends her life paying for this mistake. Near the end of her long life, and having enjoyed without enjoyment a successful writing career, Briony's birthday is celebrated by her relations. This party is held at the old country house, now a renovated hotel, where her grand nieces and nephews perform THE TRIALS OF ARABELLA, a deeply emotional and incomprehensible experience for all (the surviving twin boy, now an old man, breaks down completely, as will nearly every reader).

This book goes into my unofficial rank as one of the best reading experiences I've ever had. It tooks me days to shake the feeling that Briony was a part of my life. I was completely transported and I don't think there can be better praise than that.

A PIVOTAL MOMENT OCCURS IN ATONEMENT WHEN Robbie, a family friend of the Tallises, decides to search for their young missing cousins. He does not want the Tallis family to know yet of his love for their daughter, so he separates from her and sets out through the extensive family grounds on his own.

It is a choice that alters the rest of his life. Part one of the book, that the author builds slowly and carefully, ends with Cecelia Tallis's teenage sister, Briony, testifying that during the search, she witnessed cousin Lola's rape. Robbie is suspect number one.

Atonement finds author Ian McEwan turning from the restrictions of the thriller genre to create a literary marvel. He chooses an initial setting in and around an English Country Home occupied by the Tallis family. It is Pre-WWII.

McEwan ferrets out the anima of his main characters, most of whom undergo radical change by book's end, and not because of the World War. Emily is head of the household, mother to 13-year-old Briony (who is an emerging writer,) Cecelia, and older brother, Leon. Significant guests that fatal weekend include Paul Marshall, who is Leon's wealthy friend, a beautiful cousin named Lola, and the bratty mischievous young cousins. Also present: Robbie, a friend to the family since childhood.

In a romantic episode, McEwan writes an unhackneyed, and appealingly-fresh scene of Robbie and Cecelia making love for the first, awkward, but passionate time. Elegantly done.

Part Two narrates the characters' war service. Part Three concerns Briony's adult life.

In course of the book, McEwan subtly reveals a sibling rivalry theme, and shows the dangers that can spring from snobbery and racism. He also deals with how a writer can attempt atonement for their own misdeeds through writing fiction: surely an unusual theme.

A rich and profound work.

Winner of Britain's 1998 Booker prize for "Amsterdam," Ian McEwan narrowly missed winning again for "Atonement," a novel of breathtaking reach and grasp, power and subtlety, as perfectly structured as a Michaelangelo sculpture. Last year's Booker winner, Peter Carey's "The True History of the Kelly Gang" is a fine, entertaining, really good novel, but not a patch on "Atonement." It's difficult to reign in the hyperbole in discussing this masterful, riveting, incisive book, but I'll try.

The story is told in four very different segments. The long first section is set on the Tallis family's comfortable country estate in 1935. At its center is Briony Tallis, 13 when the story opens, 77 at the novel's close. The second section jumps to 1940 for a graphic, heartrending depiction of the rout at Dunkirk from the viewpoint of Robbie, a family protégé and gardener's son, and the third returns to Briony, a trainee nurse in a London hospital, awaiting the Dunkirk evacuees. The last section, narrated by Briony, reflects on the past from the vantage point of old age.

As the story opens, Briony, the youngest of three children, and a prolific short story writer, has turned her hand to playwrighting to celebrate the coming visit of her older brother, Leon, and involve some cousins displaced by their parents' impending divorce. But complementing Briony's vivid imagination is a passion for precision and order and directing the recalcitrant, even manipulative cousins, into her meticulous vision proves an unwieldy challenge. "The self-contained world she had drawn with clear and perfect lines had been defaced with the vague scribble of other minds, other needs; and time itself, so easily sectioned on paper into acts and scenes, was even now dribbling uncontrollably away."

While she is wrestling with this frustration, Briony views an incomprehensible scene from the window: her older sister Cecilia disrobing and jumping into the fountain while her old childhood friend, Robbie, looks on. The scene spurs Briony's imagination while the cousins rouse her ire and finally she abandons her play, ticket booth, posters and all and runs outdoors to take her frustrations out on the shrubbery. Wit and despair spark off one another in McEwan's acute portrayal of childhood intensity.

"It is hard to slash at nettles for long without a story imposing itself, and Briony was soon absorbed and grimly content, even though she appeared to the world like a girl in the grip of a terrible mood."

But, tiring of her heroic fantasy with the nettles, Briony returns to herself, more freighted with melancholy than before. She decides to stand on a small bridge until something happens. With perfect irony, McEwan foreshadows disaster: "She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasies, rose to her challenge, and dared to dispel her insignificance."

The reader knows disaster is coming, but what, exactly, remains a mystery. Given Briony's dramatic capriciousness, it could be anything from murder to adolescent embarrassment. We know only that it reverberates down the years through Briony's life. And when at last it stands revealed in all its naked avoidability, McEwan jumps abruptly, jarringly, into the maelstrom of war and defeat.

Where the second section pins the reader in the horror and immediacy of Robbie's every intense moment, the first section roves from one viewpoint to another, riffling through the thoughts and feelings of each character and reflecting the characters in each other's eyes. There's competent, diplomatic Cecilia, flustered and preoccupied with Robbie's stiff behavior, and her mother, Emily, half bedridden, ineffectual and given to fusses but with a sense of herself as the matriarch with an internal finger on the pulse of the entire house, the cousins' bewilderment and insecurity, Leon's easygoing malleability, his tycoon friend's desire for a war to ensure the success of his coated chocolate bar and ardent Robbie's class uncertainties and intellectual confidence.

Psychologically nuanced, there isn't a wasted word, though the writing is not spare. Every sentence furthers the reader's understanding while moving the characters forward in their own groping self-actualization and misapprehension. At the core it's a novel about atonement, about forgiveness and unforgivability, about how some things cannot be undone. It's also a novel about love and war, emotion and intellect, society and the often clueless world of one's own head, childhood and adulthood and the gulf between. It's a novel about the process of writing, of imagination, of misunderstanding. It's an ambitious beautiful book, which succeeds on every level. You won't want it to end.

This was my first read of Carolly Erickson, and I was enthralled by her writing style. Yes, the book reads like a novel, but I don't find this detrimental. One of the biggest problems with historical biographies are they are often heavy and dull, and I don't think this should be the case when describing extraordinary times and events. I felt like I was transplanted "into the period;" and while Josephine had her share of vices, I found her accessible and human. A lot of times with biographies, I end up hating the subject, because the author relishes revealing the subject's tarnished persona in such an unflattering light. Ms. Erickson's Josephine I liked, despite her evident flaws.

My only complaint would be overindulgence in trivial detail, e.g., her "rotten teeth" and "fading beauty." No one really likes aging, do they?

Carrolly Erickson is a talented researcher and author, and her new biography on Empress Josephine is another very good read. I have a problem, however, with Erickson's habit of falling a little too much in love with some of her less admirable subjects. Josephine, while an exceptional character study, does not deserve the relentless emphasis Erickson places on her few redeeming qualities. Josephine was, in fact, a shallow and self-indulgent liar, swindler, whore, and manipulator extraordinaire. Although Erickson acknowledges these traits, she plays them down by repeatedly referencing Josephine's ingenuousness, compassion, and victim qualities, none of which are visible without Erickson's careful coaching. Erickson displayed this same oh-come-now-she's-not-so-bad-if-you'll-only-try approach with Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary"). The book ended, appropriately, with Josephine's funeral. But I wanted to know what happened to her two children, Napolean's new wife, and even the loathsome Bonapart relatives. These were not peripheral characters; they were integral components of Josephine's life and a quick wrap-up sketch of each would have made the ending much more satisfying. I'm glad I read this book and recommend it to other biography and history lovers. Even so it's difficult to resist a spectacular kind of repugnance towards Josephine, notwithstanding Erickson's unfortunate and obvious urging to the contrary.

I loved reading this book and couldn't put it down because it got me to know Josephine - Napoleon's first Empress. I was born on 8/15 which is also Napoleon's Birthday so I have several books in my library about him. Since there is not a lot written about Josephine except that she married a man; a minor official in the Court of Louis 16th who was eventually executed by the"Terror"; had two children with him; after his death she became popular and hosted a salon where she met Napoleon. Miss Erickson brought Josephine to life for me with teling her story from the time of her birth on a plantation in the West Indies to her death in a very entertaining and charming way. I would recommend this biography to anyone who enjoys reading the lives of famous women or French History.ERIN MARIE SULLIVAN

I got this book to support West Point's bicentennial. Now that I have actually looked at it (and I put it that way because it is mostly pictures and not much text), I find it disappointing. The text, though properly written and edited, is quite boring. Many of the pictures are amateurishly blown up to the extent that they are washed out. The book, or glorified brochure, or whatever you want to call it, has the feel of being hastily put together to get out in time to make money for all concerned. To me, that takes from what should have been a noble purpose. I don't think it succeeded in achieving that noble purpose. In fact, now that the Party is over, I wouldn't recommend it.

I admit I didn't watch the PBS program to which this book is 'companion,' but I have no doubt that the pretty pictures on TV matched the pretty pictures in this book. In fact, that's probably the biggest impression I carry away from this book: it's very ... colorful. The text gives an adequate history of the US Military Academy, hitting on all the requisite high points: Thayer, Lee, Flipper, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Hollen, and so on. The images -- portraits, old maps, memorabilia from the USMA museum, etc -- decently illustrate the text (though the contemporary photos mixed in with the historic ones are sometimes rather *non sequitur* to what's being discussed). Among the great piles of books and videos that have been produced to observe West Point's bicentennial, I'm sure this picture book will be very popular. But I suspect it will mean more to people who didn't themselves actually attend the school. Those who did will find little that's new -- and despite the Academy's official cooperation with this production, may find the book too, well, glossy for their tastes.

Partly because I grew up as an Army brat, I've always been fascinated by the military and naval academies, as far back as the 1950s TV series "The Long Grey Line." This coffee table book is a companion to a special on PBS marking the 200th anniversary of President Jefferson's founding of a military educational institution at West Point, up the Hudson from New York. It's a gorgeous piece of work, with as much attention given to the text as to the pictures, tracing the Academy from its floundering first few years, to the sixteen-year reign of Superintendent Sylvanus Thayer (the true father of the school), through the classes that supplied most of the leaders on both sides of the Civil War (who all had served together in the War with Mexico), through the long years leading up to World War I. Fifty-nine of the cadets in the Class of 1915 ("the Class the Stars Fell On") became general officers, and one became president. During the later days of the Vietnam War, cadets seldom left the school, they were so badly treated by civilians their own age, and there were several major cheating scandals -- the author doesn?t whitewash any of that stuff -- but the Academy, having revised itself almost continuously for two centuries -- seems to be coming back. This is a beautiful book.