Norman Moss's "19 Weeks: America, Britain, and the Fateful Summer of 1940" should be read together with John Lukacs' "Five Days in London; May, 1940." Both authors agree the summer of 1940 was a crucial turning point. If England had chosen to negotiate with Hitler, rather than to stand and fight, and if they had failed to deploy radar in time they could have lost control of the air over the south of England, and the German invasion would have gone forward. In either case the future for western democracy would have been much more bleak than it has proved to be.

Lukacs concentrates on a narrow period of time (five days in May) when Churchill persuaded his war cabinet to reject Hitler's offer to negotiate, despite some like Lord Halifax, who advocated seeking a deal. Moss expands his horizon to include everything from the invasion of France in May to the successful conclusion of the Battle of Britain at the end of September. He also looks back to the English and American experience of WW I, and forward to Hitler's declaration of war on December 11, 1940, which ended the controversy between the American isolationists and internationalists. Moss makes clear how determined most Americans were to avoid war, and how hard it was for Roosevelt to support Britain within the bounds of legality. Moss claims it was the Republican nomination of the internationalist Wendell Willkie as their standard bearer in the 1940 presidential election which enabled Roosevelt to support the British without risking losing the election on that account.

Moss gives much more detail about the material support Roosevelt gave Churchill than I have found anywhere else. Many mention the selling of 500,000 bolt action rifles (with ammo completely incompatible with the British standard). But no one else I have read has mentioned the sale of 500 WW I French-style 75 mm field guns. This would have greatly strengthened Britain's infantry battalions, which had lost almost all their field artillery at Dunkirk.

Moss made one startling error of fact. He referred to German "flying bombs and V-1 and V-2 rockets," which suggests he does not know the V-1's were flying bombs. I can only hope the rest of his factual claims are reliable.

This is a very helpful book for anyone interested in the "might have been's" concerning the origins of WW II.

Fred Hallberg

I typed in two (2) versions of a review of Moss's book. I typed one and waited two days. Nothing happened. Then I typed a second, still nothing happened.

Could you suggest why my reviews never appeared? I do not believe they were inaccurate or controversial. But until I find out what happened, I will not bother writing any more.

As a youngster, my understanding of World War II was when the United States formally entered after Pearl Harbor. Only some years later did it become clear that formal war declarations began almost twenty-seven months earlier, in September 1939. It seems likely that many Americans, especially with our poor or incomplete knowledge of history labored (and some continue to labor on) under the same misconception.

Moss does a wonderful job of filling such a gap in an understanding of the Great War. There was a 27-month delay between England's declaration of war on Germany and Germany's declaration of war on America (Another refresher: On December 8, America declared war on Japan, not Germany; four days later, Germany declared war on the United States for the Nazi ally.). More critical the conduct of the war were these nineteen weeks of 1940, generally commencing with the escape from Dunkirk in May and concluding with the deciphered message in late September that Hitler had called off the airborne invasion troops, signifying the delay (and, eventually, cancellation) of the invasion of England across the English Channel.

Under the Nazi wave of terror, England and much of the world were pretty grim in early 1940. Moss shows how much of the change foe the better came about from the slow if certain evolution of America from an isolationist country, to an anti-Nazi sentiment, to a pretty solid pro-British sentiment by late 1940. At one desperate moment, England and France considered unifying under a single government. Even the pessimism of Joe Kennedy, the American ambassador to England and father of future president John Kennedy, could not match the determination of the English. This was their "finest hour" and Winston Churchill personified their ability to stand up to the seemingly inevitable Nazi win.

More than sixty years have passed and it leaves some believing that eventual Allied victory was preordained. While the seeds of victory were planted in acts like the miraculous Dunkirk exodus, the decision by Roosevelt to send fifty desperately needed destroyers to submarine-ravaged England, and the strategic misfire by Hitler to leave behind the RAF airfields and to bomb English cities, victory was no foregone conclusion, no Hollywood-like heroics just waiting to be written. This was a highly uncertain, life-and-death struggle.

When the Blitz - a shift to terror bombing of London -- commenced in early September 1940, much of London life went on, albeit with some adjustments. Morale remained persistently high. Few people cracked under the pressure, despite the unprecedented bombing deaths of first hundreds and then thousands of English began. Some people relished the uncertainty and the struggle to survive and to triumph. The adrenalin ran high despite the grey, smoky days and flame-filled nights. By war's end, twenty percent of English casualties were civilian, many of them living in their own homes. By German and English estimates as to the devastation produced were too high. Economies and people managed to work through the worst imaginable. Using diaries, newspapers, public opinion polls and observations, Moss weaves a highly readable tale of life, shifting from continental Europe as the early stages of the war unfold, and moving to England and America during that fateful summer, focusing primarily on Roosevelt and Churchill but, more enlighteningly, offering detailed glimpses of domestic policies and people in both countries doing that critical time. From British propaganda to an analysis of the isolationist and pro-British movements, Moss creates a time and place feel for that summer which, by all accounts, was a glorious, dry, blue English summer that year. Another note: With war, the daily weather forecasts became a matter of national security, so most Englishmen could only experience the weather, not hear a forecast. The end of the war marked the return of broadcast weather forecasts.

Moss has to start a bit slowly. These nineteen weeks are preceded by years of recrimination and stubbornness resulting fro the first Great War. He explains the context for these memorable nineteen weeks. Most important to our generation and to history, he shows that perseverance in the face of adversity was not only critical, it was not always welcomed. Many soon-to-be-Allies - French, English and American -- would have accepted a peace with Germany in 1940, mostly in German terms. Few would have predicted in that same year that the tables would turn completely within five years. Moss provides a useful, smooth (although by now also pretty well known to many and well known to historians of this war), journalistic coverage of this important time.

I have always enjoyed reading books that look at the UFO Phenomenon from a "historical" perspective. I was, therefore, looking forward with great anticipation to reading Wendy Connors and Michael David Hall's "Summer of the Saucers". The book claims to be both an account of the great UFO flap of 1952 (the greatest year of UFO sightings in American history) and a biography of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the legendary supervisor of the US Air Force's Project Blue Book. Blue Book was the code name for the US government's official investigation of the UFO phenomenon. Although the Project spent most of its twenty-year existence (1949-1969) debunking UFO sightings, Ruppelt did preside over a "golden age" from 1951-1953 when Project Blue Book took UFO sightings seriously and investigated them in an objective and fair manner. Ruppelt managed to investigate some of the most famous UFO sightings in history - the famed "Lubbock Lights" in Texas, the UFO home movies shot in Utah and Montana, and the great "invasion of Washington" in July 1952 when UFOs were seen above the nation's capital and were picked up on radar at two airports in Washington. Although Ruppelt's story and the 1952 sightings provide the basis for a great book, "Summer of the Saucers" sadly isn't it. The book has the feel of being a hastily put together, self-published effort. The editing is poor - there are numerous spelling errors, the photos are often grainy and difficult to discern, and the author's writing style is simplistic and about on the level of a high-school senior's research paper. Letters from Ruppelt's relatives are simply printed verbatim in the text, without any commentary or analysis from the authors - and the letters often take up several entire pages. Ruppelt himself was certainly a leading figure in ufology, but the book relentlessly praises him and offers few real insights into his career or his feelings about the UFO phenomenon. As a biography, "Summer of the Saucers" is simplistic and shallow; as a study of the greatest UFO flap in American history, it provides some newly declassified government files but little else that is new or original. For a serious student of ufology the book may be worth buying just for the new material it provides, but for those who have enjoyed reading the works of J. Allen Hynek, Jerome Clark, and Kevin Randle, this book will almost certainly be a disappointment. In fact, the best book written about the early fifties and ufology remains Ruppelt's own memoir, "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" - I would recommend reading it over this latest "biography".

Hall, Michael D., and Wendy Connors. CAPTAIN EDWARD J. RUPPELT: SUMMER OF THE SAUCERS--1952. The authors, 2000. Large-format softbound, xxiv, 285pp, bibliography & references, index, photo-illustrated. Edward Ruppelt served as project chief for USAF investigation into UFO phenomena from Novermber 1951 through September, 1953, a tenure which would take him (and us) smack through the center of the most intense UFO wave yet recorded in the U.S., and would make the terms UFO and "Blue Book" a part of American language and history. Michael Hall and Wendy Connors have written not only a biography which commemorates Ruppelt's skill, patriotism, devotion to duty and scientific rigor under conditions in which many a lesser talent would have failed, but a history of the 1952 saucer wave which in itself is nothing less than marvelous. With full access to Ruppelt's private papers and unedited writings, and reinforced by personal interviews with many persons who knew and served with Ruppelt, the authors bring an already fascinating period to vivid life here. It is to be eternally regretted that ufology has suffered so much degradation as it has over especially the last 10 or 12 years. But 50 years ago we lived in simpler and more trusting times. And it is to that era that ufologists are now returning, relieved to escape the oppressiveness of contemporary ufology for a time in which contamination of the data is minimal, while the hope of reward (in terms of understanding the origin of UFOs remains undiminished. SUMMER OF THE SAUCERS is the best of the new "time capsule" UFO books, and a loving tribute to a kind of American hero who rates a premier and central monument in ufology's Hall of Fame.

The years 1947 to 1953 were the golden age of UFO research. Within that long-ago time frame, our military and intelligence agencies did not yet have in place the "watertight" policies that researchers today must contend with. UFO or "flying disk" research was not yet treated with derision by the majority of media, and researchers like Donald Keyhoe, with his many military contacts, brought to light cases involving military encounters that today the public would never hear about.

After several previous UFO projects initiated by the U.S. Air Force, the Blue Book program took shape and form under a young Air Force officer by the name of Edward J. Ruppelt. In retrospect, the Blue Book project is considered by most modern-day researchers to have been nothing more than a public whitewash by the Air Force during the 1950s and '60s, yet at its inception, Ruppelt's Blue Book was a genuine investigation that attempted to get to the bottom of the saucer controversy. Captain Edward J. Ruppelt: Summer of the Saucers-1952 takes the reader directly into the middle of this fascinating milieu.

The year 1952 was a "flap year" for UFO sightings, arguably the most astounding of the last century. Authors Hall and Connors researched the fact that between March and September of 1952, American newspapers across the country reported that more than 30,000 individual sightings of UFOs had taken place. This did not reflect what was happening in the rest of the world! The magnitude of the summer of 1952 "invasion" has never again been duplicated.

Edward J. Ruppelt was known as a dedicated Air Force officer. A decorated World War II combat veteran of the Army Air Force, he returned to school after the war and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1950. Married and expecting his first child, Ruppelt was recalled to active duty with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. In early 1951, Ruppelt was assigned to Intelligence at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

If you're interested in the subject of UFOs, you need to be aware of what was transpiring during this extremely important period, for this is when the groundwork was laid for military and intelligence activities connected with UFOs. For example, the first known military project to examine the flying disk reports was known to the public as "Project Saucer." The project's real name, however, was "Sign," and under Project Sign the "Estimate of the Situation" was drafted and completed. Though its existence was originally denied by the USAF, the "Estimate" is now legendary in UFO research circles. It allegedly stated that some UFOs could possibly be of interplanetary origin. After General Hoyt S. Vandenberg refused to accept this report, almost overnight the subject of UFOs became politically "incorrect," if not downright taboo. Project Sign and the "pro" proponents were "out" and the new project "Grudge" and the anti-UFO reality faction were in. The cases that were "investigated" under Grudge were laughable, but changes were coming. They came in the form of Ruppelt and the new Blue Book.

One reason that Ruppelt: Summer Of The Saucers is such a fascinating read is that authors Hall and Connor give an almost minute-by-minute account of the most famous UFO case of all, the overflights above Washington, D.C. In hindsight, these sightings were the "straw that broke the camel's back." As the days leading up to July 19, 1952 show, reports of unknown aerial objects were filling the offices of Blue Book. The project had neither the budget nor staff to handle such an influx of data, and analyses of the reports that have been located today show that many of the more important sightings did not even make it into the Blue Book files. When the sightings over the nation's capitol began, Ruppelt was out of town. In fact, he may not have been aware of the overflights until the following Monday or Tuesday. Over all, Blue Book's coverage of this event was abysmal.

Looking at the situation in the late 1940s through the 1960s from the military's perspective, a strain of schizophrenia is clearly apparent. If the reader is familiar with any of the books written by Donald Keyhoe during the 1950s, that author made this point time and again. Here, Hall and Connors imprint it in stone. In some ways, Project Blue Book seems, to this reviewer, to have been set up to fail. While highly motivated and dedicated, Ed Ruppelt was a junior officer thrust into a job with limited resources and at times questionable backing.

Today, it seems beyond belief that the American military, with the horrible memories of Pearl Harbor very fresh in their collective minds, could have denied that "something" was flying around in American skies with impunity, while seemingly under intelligent control. Yet there was a faction in the military and the CIA that apparently held no interest in the origin or purpose of these devices. They were more interested in shaping public perception (read: propagandizing the public) to ignore these objects, using lies and deceit to cover up these events on a worldwide basis. Later, the Robertson Panel, under the auspices of the CIA, would "formalize" these tactics of debunking, lying, propagandizing, and in some cases destroying the reputations of citizens who dared to buck the "company line." Not much seems to have changed in the last 50 years.

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt: Summer Of The Saucers-1952 is a fascinating book and one that I highly recommend to the informed readership. As an important piece of history, covering perhaps the most important time in UFO research, this book details what was occurring behind the scenes at Air Force and intelligence agency headquarters, and with the officers and men who had a thumb on the UFO phenomenon. Hall and Connors have done a wonderful job of research on this project and I am grateful that they have. Not since Rich Dolan's UFOs and the National Security State has any other book convinced me to continue to "watch the skies!" -Don Ecker

I'm afraid I have to disagree with other reviewers of this book. The writing is often awkward and grammatically challenged (to use a current euphemism). And Sandy Irvine comes across as a rather ordinary young man, self centered, good at sports, and good with his hands, but lacking in any sort of intellectual sophistication. It was this very sophisitcation and intellectualism that made Mallory the interesting figure he remains. Had Mallory been a mere hearty, he would have far less interesting. In contrast to Mallory, Irvine strikes one as eactly what this biography tries to convince one he was not, i.e., a follower who had little idea of what Mallory was leading him into.

Because of Irvine's commoness and the bad writing (Where oh where was an editor!?), this is hardly worth the time, and certainly not worth the money.

Fearless On Everest: The Quest For Sandy Irvine is an intensely personal, candid, and informative account of the life of a young man who died at the age of 22 while on an expedition to climb Mt. Everest. Written with a narrative smoothness that completely engages the reader's attention, biographer and Irvine family member Julie Summers includes newly discovered letters and photographs and specifically addresses a long-debated question in mountaineering circles: Why did George Leigh Mallory choose the young, less-experienced Andrew Irvine as his partner on so hazardous an enterprise? Also very highly recommended for mountaineering enthusiasts are three related titles from Mountaineers Books addresses the doomed Mallory-Irvine expedition: Ghosts Of Everest: The Search For Mallory & Irvine (699-5, $.....); The Mystery Of Mallory & Irvine: Fully Revised Edition (726-6, $.....); The Wildest Dream: The Biography Of George Mallory (741-X, $......).

This is a very well-written and researched book. It provides an introspective and analytical look into the man of mystery on the expedition...Sandy Irvine. The photos, family anecdotes, and treasure trove of memorabilia recently discovered provided a full and satisfying read. You can't know all about the 1924 expedition until you know about what made Sandy Irvine tick.

This book is totally boring. I didn't like it. Most of the reviews I have written are possative but this one is a negative.

My wife read this book to 'the kids' on a long trip - the kids fell asleep and I would not let her stop reading. We laughed and laughed as she read this excellent peice of work. I am ordering another copy to send to my mother - great book!

Ms. Ware is a talented and energetic writer who connects with readers of all ages. Her story-telling abilities are wonderful and her attention to detail is delightful.

Too many things are shown in the wrong places on the maps.

The most hilarious example is on page 97. Laos had two capital cities: the royal capital of Luang Prabang, where the (purely ceremonial) king lived, and the administrative capital of Vientiane, where there was an actual government. On this map, Luang Prabang has been moved across the border into North Vietnam (a very strange place for the royal capital of Laos), while Vientiane has been moved across the other border into Thailand. The same map also has the town of Vinh, in North Vietnam, shifted westward from its actual location near the coast; it appears on this map to be closer to the Laotian border than to the sea.

Flip one page back to look at the map on page 95, which shows the Tonkin Gulf Incidents and the U.S. air strikes of August 5, 1964. This map has Vinh in the right place, but Hanoi has been mislocated; it is shown as being southwest of Haipong (Hanoi is actually northwest of Haiphong). More important, the map shows Hon Gai, one of the targets of the U.S. air strikes, as being right next to the Chinese border. Hon Gai is actually well to the southwest of the location shown; if it had been close to the Chinese border, Lyndon Johnson would not have approved the strike against it in this operation. The location shown for the aircraft carrier Constellation, which launched the planes for the strike against Hon Gai, is also seriously inaccurate.

A small inset map on page 95 shows the tracks of the two U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy, on the night of August 4, 1964, and the tracks of objects that appeared on their radar, believed to be torpedo boats attacking them. The track shown for the supposed torpedo boat designated V2 bears no resemblance to any track that shows in the records of the destroyers, and the track shown for V1 does not bear a close resemblance to any track that shows in the records of the destroyers.

I have not found so many errors in other maps in this atlas, but I have found more than I liked. The one thing an atlas is absolutely supposed to do is show things in the correct locations on the maps.

This is a beautifully illustrated book with battlefield plans of the Vietnam Wars and details of all the troop movements. It places the reader right at the center of the war zone. The text on the left handside details the events involved at the time while maps are drawn on the right handside.

The texts are concised, focused and give the reader a clear and broad picture of the war.

Adds a new dimension sorely lacking in other good books about Vietnam. Good historical coverage all the way back to pre-history, sharp clear graphics and comprehensive coverage. I was there in 1968-69 and think this book is a valuable addition to anyone's Vietnam collection -- or a fine place to start if you are just learning about this country and its wars. Kudos to Colonel Summers, the author, for producing such a fine atlas.

I read this book as a young girl because my Uncle is a friend of the authors. I am now 30 years old. I chose to reread this as an adult because it touched me so deeply when I was young. I was equally, if not more, touched the second time around. I recommend this for young people and hope that they take away as much from the book as I have.

"The Lilith Summer," a novel by Hadley Irwin, was a wonderful book filled with valuable lessons, metaphors and similes. It is a book filled with joy, sadness, surprise, and anger. The book is about a developing and loving friendship between a young girl and an older woman, and how they learn lessons and valuable information from each other. It also explains love, how people leave, and what you must do to deal with it. This book taught me a lot about life and love and I thouroughly enjoyed it, and this book will be read by generations to come.

"The Lilith Summer" is a great book if you understand it. There is a lot of figurative language in it. It teaches important lessons in life.

Having read and loved "A Circle of Quiet" (the first of four in the Crosswicks Journals) I had high hopes for this second volume. Curiously, though, this book made me reconsider continuing with the series. L'engle's accounts of her extended family read like historical revisionism -- does any extended family function as well as she claims? I would think a creative and brilliant group of people probably clash more than this book would suggest.

As with "A Circle of Quiet" there are little gems along the way -- L'engle is a gifted writer, and reading her thoughts is a privledge. Overall, though, I found her style dispassionate and erudite, not what I would have expected from a personal memoir.

This is a lovely book that underscores the potential beauty of death as well as our responsiblity to the dying. Madeline writes this book as a tribute to her mother and to her mother's life during the summer that her mother lays dying in Madeline's Crosswicks home. The book has very strong echoes (read repetitive)of A Circle of Quiet and therefore should not be read immediately after reading that one. While I found her story interesting and sometimes fascinating, I did get bogged down in some of her listings of her family tree. But this was overall another lovely book that was thouroughly Madeline

I'm a big fan of Madeleine L'Engle's non-fiction (regrettably, I have not yet read any of her fiction); I began with Walking on Water, and then moved on to A Circle of Quiet, from which I arrived here, at The Summer of the Great-Grandmother. There are themes that carry over from Walking and Circle, but for the most part, Summer is a different animal altogether.

Like A Circle of Quiet, the book is autobiographical and takes place at "Crosswicks," the L'Engle/Franklin home in Connecticut. As the title indicates, L'Engle's mother, freshly a great-grandmother, is living with them, and her health and cognitive ability is swiftly declining. Throughout the book--really, like A Circle of Quiet, a collection of journal entries--the author deals with losing the mother that she used to know to senility and incontinence, as well as the effects and ramifications of death.

I've never had anyone close to me die, so I can't relate to this book as much as I could to A Circle of Quiet or Walking on Water, but it's superbly written (L'Engle's words always seem to be alive and breathing), and I imagine that it would be a great comfort to those who are dealing with death.

Mr. Dwelle's book is interesting. There is no better or more complete history of the cities and towns that make up the Great Lakes region, making Summer Studies a surprising and valuable textbook.

Dwelle is a good storyteller, writing about the people he meets and the places he visits with obvious affection. And the setbacks that befall all sailors one time or another are here, often told with great humor.

However, Summer Studies suffers from several colosssal flaws. There is no discernible system of organization. It is as if the book was composed on a series of index cards which were then shuffled and made into a book.

Dwelle also never misses the opportunity to insult those who own powerboats. According to Dwelle, they are all ignorant buffoons who have no right to share his precious lakes, but in the book he never takes the time to give the reason for his bigotry.

Dwelle also unwisely allows his leftwing political views to get into the way. He says one town, for example, fell into hard times because of "Reganomics," but he is unwilling to elaborate or substantiate his claim.

I struggled over whether to give Summer Studies three or four stars. On content alone, it is superb. But the book screams out for a better editor, who could have shaped it into a five-star winner.

I hope Dwelle is working on a sequel. And I hope he has learned from the mistakes of "Summer Studies."

The book is very enjoyable, with a mixture of cruising and commentary by the author. The author is very opinionated about some matters which makes for speculation as your reading. But the sailling material is excellent and well written and most enjoyable. It's rare to find a really good book about sailing on the Great Lakes.

The first review which criticizes this book is wrong. This is an excellent book. He criticizes it for having opinions, but that is what makes this such an unusual cruising book--not just weather and wind speed and anchorages. An excellent book that offers sailing and alot more. I recommend it highly.

Those are three words I think describe this book. I had to read it for my Freshman year summer reading. I believe that is was, quite frankly, screwed up. This woman ends up marrying her guardian! I do respect that some people believe that this was a wonderful book, but I'm not one of them & I certainly do not recommend it.

I thought that this book was a good story about the sexual awakening of a woman. Charity Royall has a sexual curiosity that is experimented with in this novel. I thought that Charity was a brat throughout the novel. Mr. Royall was always there to take care of her no matter what, and she knew it. This gave her an egotistic character. Even though this got annoying at times, it shaped who the character Charity Royall really is. On the back of the novel it is described as "praised for its realism...". I thought that this was a realistic book. It was easy to feel sympathetic for the characters, and the plot isn't so far off that it is unbelievable. I thought this was a fun book to read because it read easily. It had a smooth flow that took you right through to the end. This is a good book for both men and women to read. Women can relate to it, and men can have an inside view of one woman's thoughts.

The novel Summer, by Edith Wharton is an inspiring love story that is a must read. Edith Wharton very vividly depicts the life of a girl, Charity Royall, developing into a passionate and sexual woman. Wharton uses seasons to express Charity's moods and changes. She takes her readers on a journey of a woman's struggle through diversity and social barriers. These hardships are what make her character a symbol of strength for women.
Charity was a child of societies lowest class who lived amongst "mountain dwellers". She was brought down from the mountain by lawyer Royall, one of the richest men in the small town of North Dormer, who takes pity on her. Charity always knew she was different and is made very aware of the fact that she should be grateful for what she has, but she still wants more. North Dormer is a small town and coming from a small town myself, I can relate to wanting more and finding excitment outside of it's crushing surroundings.
Charity takes a job at the local library, to save enough money to move away on her own, when she meets an educated, handsome, young man from the city named Lucius Harney. Their flirtatious meetings with each other turn into a fiery, passionate love affair. Harney gives her something that she never experienced before, something new and fresh. He shows her love which she always thought of "...as something confused and furtive, and he made it as bright and open as the summer air" (128). Charity's beauty is unlike the girls of Harney's social class. Charity has a natural beauty and mystery about her because she is from the mountain and the other girls are materialistic and fake. Harney is lured in by this and Charity, for the first time, enjoys being different.
The society in North Dormer does not approve of their behavior. Charity and Harney are from different social classes and being together is unacceptable. Charity faces ridicule from the town and also from her caretaker, lawyer Royall. She rebels against what everyone thinks about her relationship and goes on with her love affair with Harney.
Charity's continued affair with Harney lands her in a situation that she can not get out of. Society tears Harney and her apart and she is forced to make a very courageous choice. She finds strength in herself to sacrifice her happiness and dreams, of a life outside of her small town, for her lover's happiness.
Wharton made a bold move to create such a controversial novel of its time. Just as Charity went against what was considered socially acceptable, so did Wharton. Summer is as passionate and alive as it's title suggest. It is a wonderful love story that shows a girl who blossoms with the seasons into a strong, sexual and diverse woman.

Lucy Summers' books has nice photographs in her book, great looking cover, spells and tricks for the master witch??....
A real witch knows these are books to please the mass market, the Buffy and Charmed fan teenagers. They are cheap, more photos than text and (all) about love, hate, anger,luck, doing a little ritual and money.
So do you really need a spell? Why don't you write it yourself? It be far more effective, but remember the rule of three. And the above are things that you can't master, love, money and heath will come if someone sees in your heart how true you are.
A witch can practice magic naked in a desert. He or She doesn't need a pre-made spell that has hard-to-find ingredients.
If you like spells, read Larie Cabot or Starhawk. They know a least what they are talking about.

It's a great beginner book, it's in simple english, to the point and takes you step by step thru rituals, as well as explaining magickal tools and seasonal festivals. I'm not a beginner and I still found this book interesting.

This is a good book for begeners, or people who jsut want to knwo a bit more about wicca. Its not ment for an advanced student, but still good.