V Books

This book blew me away, it is simply fantastic. It is sad that Eugene Burdick died at age 46. If you want to be enchanted, mesmerized, read this book, it is simply magnificent. I shall treasure it in my own library because it is the kind of book you may read over and over again. If you have not read it, you are in for a treat.

"Jack Nash" is one of the best short stories I've read in a long, long time.

This book has many factual chapters about the Pacific Region, and five tales that are representative of some elements of the area. The Black and the White is arguably one of the most important fictional stories of the Pacific: A French man who escaped the wretchedness of his nation to discover that his adopted culture was heartbreakingly shallow. It is one of those few stories that will leave you thinking, and you may very well read again and again. It was a great loss when Burdick died at a relatively young age.

A great example of a excellent book that could become a classic without being confused with world literature. A strait forward discription of the South Seas and their peoples and geography(how coral attols and volcanic islands are formed) without being dry, but rather using it to help the reader better understand the stories he has to tell. Anyone who loves the South Seas and the stories of Jack London and Somerset Maugham will love this book. It is the #1 book I have everyone read that comes to visit me. I always receive five thumbs up.

I read this book first in 1966. Today I'm buying a new copy. It's a collection of unusual short stories about the South Pacific. Most, if not all, are true and will capture your heart and make you yearn to go there.

My university is putting on The Blue Room this Spring, and I wanted to purchase a copy of the script so tha I could more readily work on the production. Excellent seller, quick shipment. Recommend to all!

David Hare's adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's "La Ronde" is nothing short of amazing. The twisting strand of relationships that course through the scenes is filled with mirror images of ourselves. Either in the lives we lead, what we invision in our mind, or in the world we see around us. There are so many difference's between the ten characters, but what makes it truly interesting is when you realize just what might be the same about them.

This play is a first rate pick!

I for one adored this play. Did not see the Broadyway play but from the reviews I heard it only cheapened this excellent work by David Hare. It goes into not the act of sex but the before and after scences displaying the casualness of sex in our society. Definately something worth thinking about. Recommend Skylark by David Hare as well.

I for one adored this play. Did not see the Broadway play but from what I heard it apparently cheapened this excellent work by David Hare. It goes into the before and after scenes from which the curtain closes. It is not about the sex but how society and individuals view sex and how commmon day our culture holds it. Any open minded individual interested in how individuals and societys behaviors correlate must read this play. It is short and easy reading for anyone to enjoy.

David Hare's dry humor underlies most lines in this play and, as a result, it is a funny enough read. Prior to reading Hare's adaptation of La Ronde, I saw the Broadway version. The audience at the theater failed to laugh at the underlying humor as it was not emphasized. The text, however, brings out this facet of the play very well. Overall, however, there is nothing special about the the play itself. It is a cursory analysis of sexuality and sexual politics. But it's not the Kinsey report.

This is the single best history of Bluegrass. I've purchased several volumes, because I lend the book to others who are becoming interested in the genre, unfortunately noone ever returns my loaned copy.

Rosenberg draws from his experiences working with Bill Monroe and other bluegrass musicians in this compelling and intriguing history of bluegrass music. The early chapters sketch out an interesting history of folk music genres that laid the foundation for bluegrass. Rosenberg then provides special attention to Monroe's role in helping to create a new sound. I especially appreciated the metaphor between playing bluegrass music and playing baseball. Rosenberg explores the symbolic and literal connections throughout the book to provide a great way to understand how the music (and game) is played.

If you're interested in the history of bluegrass music, I would recommend that you begin with this book. Rosenberg is an engaging writer and a fine historian. He also performed with Bill Monroe and has continued to maintain a strong presence in bluegrass music. The work rightly focuses on Monroe's early contributions to bluegrass music, and Rosenberg demonstrates how the musical structure and context is linked to major social issues and cultural expressions in American life. The connections that Rosenberg makes between bluegrass and baseball are fascinating and right on the money.

Bluegrass music's greatest practitioners have always been plain-as-burlap folks who wouldn't give a hoot about dissecting and intellectualizing the music that pops out of them as naturally as sweat. As an appreciator of real deals, I wouldn't have it any other way. However, I'm glad that folklorist/musical historian Neil V. Rosenberg has been around for several decades now, poking his scholarly nose into the fascinating haystack that is bluegrass and putting the needles into cultural perspective. This sweeping and heartfelt book, Rosenberg's crowning achievement as the planet's foremost bluegrass oracle, will stand as the last word on the subject for a long, long spell.

Unlike rock 'n' roll, whose Big Bang genesis one fateful day in Memphis reverberated like a sonic boom, bluegrass had more fitful beginnings. The music's raw ingredients had been fermenting in Appalachia for untold years in the form of homemade "hillbilly" music before a shy Kentuckian named Bill Monroe began distilling them in the 1930s into a distinctive musical form. Monroe deliberately crafted the sound and personality of bluegrass and, much more round-aboutly, gave it its name. As the central figure in bluegrass, Monroe's patriarchal spirit looms magnificently large over Rosenberg's history, which, after all, is ultimately Monroe's story.

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, arguably the next most important innovators in bluegrass, also figure prominently. In the 1940s, the two had been underpaid sidemen in Monroe's Blue Grass Boys band before abruptly striking out on their own in 1948 and becoming Monroe's main competition. Heavy turnover was a fact of life with the Blue Grass Boys, but the mercurial Monroe was outraged by the pair's defection and didn't speak to them for over twenty years. Transformed in the Sixties by television ("The Beverly Hillbillies") and movie ("Bonnie and Clyde") exposure into world-wide icons, Flatt & Scruggs achieved fame and commercial viability the likes of which bluegrass - including its inventor - had never known. Rosenberg's delineation of the famous Monroe/Flatt & Scruggs "feud" is one of the best things in the book.

Rosenberg's writing style can be stiff and he tends to exaggerate the significance of certain events, such as the use of a bluegrass soundtrack on an obscure experimental art film called "Football As It Is Played Today." Also, his laborious investigation into how the term "bluegrass" came to be applied specifically to the music is a bit of a yawn. The book is thorough almost to a fault, but it's petty to criticize Rosenberg's leave-no-stone-unturned work ethic. He has written the definitive bluegrass bible and clearly done it from the heart. If you appreciate true country music, of which bluegrass is the truest, this book will both delight and enlighten you, as it did me.

447 pages (including index), extensive notes, bibliography and discography, 40 pages of photos.

Rosenberg is a practing academic, and it shows in his attention to detail and writing style. However, he is also a former Blue Grass Boy and manager of Bean Blossom, and it shows in his thorough love of the Music. Fascinating details alternate with a comprehensive picture of how Bluegrass fits into the wider context of American popular music. The Big Mon (Bill Monroe) comes out as a true creative genius, yet still very much subject to outside forces, for example, the folk music revival. Rosenberg avoids sensationalism, which sometimes limits the "juicy" stories that can be told about Monroe and many others, and instead focuses on the movement and the social forces around it.

Highly recommended for fans and scholars alike, even if somewhat hard reading for non-academics.

This book is, in a word, extraordinary; so is the accompanying CD recording, which gives in addition to music of the Macedonian Romany people, a slice of their life in cafes and markets. One hears their daily activities, the sale of pita, and various wares, as well as juke boxes and street sounds as the Mahala awakens.

Mahala, for those unaware, is the village ghetto to which Rom people are generally confined, although the anthropologists who compiled this book do not seem to know that it is Arabic for ghetto, and the same word used in North Africa and other Middle Eastern Muslim nations to describe the Jewish and Christian ghettos in which those dhimmi groups are similarly confined. Dhimmis are the non-Muslim minorities in Muslim lands, and their treatment (and in Muslim nation remains) generally described and defined by the Islamic laws of jihad.

Unlike most other recent books about the Rom, this one contains a massive amount of research on the lives and music of these people, as they live it; but what I like the most are the oral histories that provide readers with a real sense of the hardships suffered by the Rom in Greek Macedonia. While the book mentions the great and disastrous Turkish invasion of Greece in 1922, it does not note the great massacre of an estimated 150,000 Christian Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna on the Aegean coast that year. This undoubtedly included some Rom, as the town was then (as now) central on the Turkish coast.

But without knowing it, the authors have demonstrated some of the ill effects of Muslim rule, for they do discuss, via oral histories, the great liberation experienced by Greek Roma in 1924, when Turks were repatriated to Turkey and 1 million Greeks from Turkey to Greece. The latter may have lost some territory, but she gained liberation from Muslim oppression.

As Greeks from Turkey poured into Greece, the town fathers in Jumaya, for example, and presumably everywhere else the Roma then lived in Greece, began to allow the Roma to go to school with Greeks. Beforehand, the Turks had imposed separation on non-Muslim peoples. But with Turks gone, Greeks exiled the old cast system too, thereby relinquishing the system that had helped imprison Greek Roma in lives without equal education. Now, suddenly, the Rom could attend the same school as everyone else.

There are many wonderful features of this book, including the photographs and the music CD at its end. But make no mistake, the oral histories are the best feature, making this one of the best books on the Rom I have read to date.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

In the rich and wonderful BRIGHT BALKAN MORNING: Romani Lives and the Power of Music in Greek Macedonia (Wesleyan University Press. Includes a CD), Charles and Angeliki Vellou Keil write of how, since the earliest days of Byzantium, commentators have remarked, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, on the power of the Romani people to "steal your heart." With its stunning photographs by Dick Blau and its evocative CD produced by Steven Feld, this book is just one more instance of stolen hearts. The Romani, who are sometimes called gypsies, have stolen the authors' hearts and are well on their way to stealing my heart as well.

I urge you to buy this book. I say so as someone who almost never reads anything published by an academic press. I am definitely not an anthropologist or a social scientist of any kind. What I know about the raw and the cooked doesn't get very far beyond my kitchen, but I couldn't put BRIGHT BALKAN MORNING down. This book ought to be that rare thing: an academic book with popular appeal.

The easiest way into the riches of BRIGHT BALKAN MORNING are Blau's black-and-white photographs of the Romani playing their instruments for weddings, wrestling matches, and the little parades that apparently form wherever they go. When the dances started up, I have a feeling that Blau joined in, for these pictures just pulled me along. I could smell the perfume in the grandmother's handkerchief as she held it out to Blau and, through him, to me, as we all danced together. I could see the textures of the road when I took my place in the wedding parade; I could almost hear the sound of the zurna (a kind of outdoor oboe) being played in my ear.

Of course Steven Feld's CD brings the actual sounds to life. The CD begins oh so slyly by introducing Romani music emerging from the ambient sounds of twentieth-century Macedonia. The Romani are, if nothing else, great survivors of history's cultural wars, and you can hear so many diverse musical strains-from the Muslim to the techno pop. Eerily enough, the rhythm of the dauli (a two-headed bass drum) being played sounds exactly like the bass-drum pounding at a high-school football pep rally.

I wasn't as happy with the book's writing style, but then the authors seem to be wrestling with shaping this heartfelt information of theirs into all the requirements of academic publishing, and that struggle oddly mirrors the lives of the Romani. This sometimes awkward prose becomes just one more instance of the dance the Romani inspire everywhere they go as they blend in and out of the moment's culture.

--R. M. Ryan
Duncans Mills, CA

Last night I planned to read this book for just a few minutes before going to sleep. Hours later, instead of sleeping I was transformed into the world of the Balkan Roma musicians and their incredible culture! I simply couldn't put this amazing book down. I love the stories and interviews with the old musicians, the informative history of the Roma people and their culture, the full-of-life photos, and the CD with soundscapes. All these pieces combine to give the reader a great view of a people and their heritage, and one that has been largely overlooked in the past. I found the work ethic of the musicians described in this book to be very inspirational. To be able to play all kinds of requests for days on end is really something to admire. Musicians of any genre could learn a whole lot from reading about the musicians in this book. Years ago, these authors turned me on to the subculture of polka in the USA (and made a polkaholic out of me) with their super "Polka Happiness" book. They have clearly done it again - informed the world about an incredibly rich culture that was largely hidden from view.

This book responds to my interest in the social context of folk music and dance. The focus was on the lives of the people who make the music, in this case the Roma of Jumaya (Iriklia) in Greek Macedonia. The writers give you quite a rounded view, describing how the music is performed, at what kinds of events, how people relate to the music and each other, how the musicians see themselves and their occupation and how making a living as a Roma musician fits into Greek society. There is also a strong sense of history and how things have changed over time in many ways - the history of Roma in Greece and other Balkan countries, the specific history of Roma in Jumaya, and the stories of individual musicians and their families. The consistently positive way that the writers approach their subject is also refreshing - they describe how Roma have used music to survive and, in some cases, prosper, and how in doing so they have contributed to the multi-layered fabric of Greek-Macedonian ethnic identities.

What is especially interesting to me is the authors' view of how multi-ethnic society works in Greek Macedonia as compared to Bulgaria or Former Yugoslavia, and how the strategy of Roma musicians is different in these different countries. In Greek Macedonia the musicians play the music of all ethnic groups in order to maximize their flexibility and income. During multi-ethnic celebrations the musicians follow a strict policy of playing everyone's requests in the order requested, so that no one feels that they have priority. There is a fascinating description of an ethnically mixed wedding where the families have to adjust their various wedding traditions to accommodate each other, making it up as they go along to some extent.

The authors compare and contrast this with the approach taken by Roma musicians in other areas of the Balkans. In Kosovo in the 1980s the Roma musicians are said to have purposely selected music from traditions from other than Serbian and Albanian in order to avoid conflicts. In Bulgaria the wedding band tradition is described as leading to a new pan-Balkan "fusion" style which borrows from many cultures but still feels Bulgarian. Ultimately the motivation behind each strategy is the need of musicians to make a living.

The book is interesting reading from a North American perspective as well. Keil contrasts the multi-ethnic consciousness of Greeks, where the same person may have several types of ethnic and national identities simultaneously, with the concept of "multiculturalism" which he describes as slices of a pizza in which there are lots of ethnicities but everyone is either one thing or another. This raise the question of what is really going on in such immigrant nations as Canada and the United States.

The accompanying CD is a potpourri of sounds, including music of various types, and there is a section of the book describing the contents of the CD. Some of the track titles are Market Day in Jumaya, Afternoon at a Mahala Café, At Home in the Mahala, New Year's Party in Serres, Taverna Party at Nikisiani. The combination of the text, the many high quality black and white photos and the soundscape are successful in putting you into the experience, as much as this is possible. There was also a nice balance between Angeliki Keil's straight-forward and very readable reporting of the lives of the musicians and Charles Keil's more theoretical musings about ethnicity, the music and the role of the musicians. My only complaint about the book is its weight - it's printed on very heavy, glossy stock, no doubt adding to the quality of photographic reproductions, but it is so big and heavy that you pretty well have to read it sitting up. An alternate title could be, "Your Big Fat Roma Music Book."

When you get Bright Balkan Morning you are likely to open it up and then leaf through it, looking at the photographs. After a few minutes of this you'll remove the CD from the inside back cover and put it on. Then you continue looking at the photos while listening to the sounds.

That in itself is a rich and satisfying experience. But don't stop there. Read the text!

It tells of Roma (aka Gypsy) musicians who have cornered the market on live music in polyglot Greek Macedonia. While they are at the bottom of the social order, anyone who wishes a proper wedding, festival, or party of any kind hires these musicians. The musicians generally perform in trios, one playing a bass drum while the other two play the zurna - a double-reed woodwind found throughout Eurasia and Africa. Their repertoire is drawn from the peoples who live in the area, or passed through at one time, and is sometimes more Oriental, sometimes more European - whatever the customer wants.

Keil and Keil give detailed accounts of several performances - a baptism, a wedding, and a saint's day festival - tell the life stories of a dozen or so musicians & family, and recount the broad history of the Roma in the Mediterranean as well as presenting a more focused account of their sojourn in Greek Macedonia. Blau's photographs range from intimate portraits, to dancers in full party whirl, through street scenes jumbled or measured, to serene landscapes. Some of his shots are so strikingly composed - the cover image, for example - that the effect is both subjective (Blau's aesthetic) and objective (we're looking at things, out there, in the world). Steven Feld's soundscapes give us the living flow of sound. Not only do we hear the twin zurnas flying through drum rhythms, but dancing feet, shouts of joy and exertion, motors churning, sheep braying, and Stevie Wonder piped in through a tinny sound system.

Bright Balkan Morning is a milestone. See it, hear it, read it. Take pleasure in it.

I recommend this to anyone that enjoys girly mangas or manhwas! Romance, humor, and fights are blended together for a wonderful story. I laughed non-stop while reading! If you want a well-drawn and written story, pick this up!

This is pretty funny! For once the girl is not some helpless person that is super nice to everyone and needs a guy to save her. I love the playful fighting and trying to one up each other play that happens between the two main characters. I have read all 4 of the books that are out and I like them all. I don't know if or when 5 will be come out but book 4 ends like it could be the end. So you will not have to worry about a cliff hanger that you never get to finish! I think this is a must read if you like to laugh!

This book is wonderful...I'm in love with it...
I'm already ordering books 2, 3, and 4...hoping they're come quickly in the mail.
This is as good as anoter manga I own. "Angel Diary" is just as good!
This is a great book! 5 stars!

OMG!!!!!!!! This book was FAN-FRIGGEN'-TASTIC!!!!!!!!!! I looooooooooved this book! At first, I only bought it to buy something (yeah...I have those moments). But now...NOW I'm HOOKED! I can't WAIT to read the next volume.

READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Better yet- BUY this book. 'Cause I KNOW you'll love it.

Since Mi-ha, the main character, was young, her brother has been shaping her into an independant, insanely strong, competitive young tomboy through tough military-like training (for selfish reasons, of course). Enter Seung-Suh, the new transfer student that has a face so beautiful it practically glitters and close ties with a gang. Him and Mi-ha start off bad- in fact, she finds him in the girls locker room early in the morning, passed out drunk on his first day. Thinking he was a college student, she punches him for acting like a pervert (he deserved it, really) and throws him in a random taxi. He gets to school reeeeaaally late (after paying a $999.99 fare to the taxi, because it just kept driving XD), and finds himself in the same classroom as the one who punched him that morning. This, my friends, is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. (YEAH RIGHT!!!!)

This manhwa had me LAUGHING MY PANTS OFF. Mi-ha and Seung-Suh are not your regular characters. Mi-ha is strong, independant, not afraid to hide her anger, yet very kind at the same time and absolutely loveable with her variety of expressions. Seung-Suh is not just your average pretty face- he's tricky (using his watery-eyed look to fool their classmates and screw over Mi-ha *lol*), seems to be afraid of being touched by girls who like him (ah, past scars, can't wait to find out what happened there), and hates people he sees as tyrants or oppressors.

Not only that, but even the side characters seem to have a life of their own, and the dialogue is so witty you'll be cracking up in no time. The art... is absolutely beautiful. I love the details and the expressions, and the overall cuteness of the characters. This whole manhwa is so stunningly put together that you'll find yourself eagerly flipping the pages to find out what awful thing Seung-Suh does to Mi-ha next, or the other way around. (They never stop, and it's GREAT! =3 ) The best part is, it's not slap-stick humor. There's real emotions in these characters, and real problems they have to face and overcome.

So don't ignore Bring It On! because it brings forth images of airheaded cheerleaders or the description makes you think of all those other love-dramas with weepy heroines and evil, controlling bishounen. You're in for a big surprise and a side-cracking treat. Trust me. ^-^

Frank Wood's Business Accounting 1 Seven's Edition
Pitman Publishing

who taking accountancy as their course. Ahmad Bohari Ahmad Azahri (KPKI college)

The contents are easy to understand with lots of practical examples - this is the first accounting book with which I did not fall into sleep after reading first 10 pages!!!

Frank Woode has a knack of easily explaining even the most seemingly confusing concepts in Accounting.

I've bought this book as my first reference book of accounting. I've checked out other books about accounting in the local book store but none suits me as this one. The accouting terms are concisely defined and the examples are precisely worked out while other books, which content is obscure and structured in a slovenly way, is an eyesore that confused me.

This book is recommended for any purpose because it gives detail and sufficient information to every topic, covers and accord with the criteria and requirements established by various prominent examinations, so when I finish this book and take one of these exams, I certainly won't botch up it and have confidence in achievement.

This is an old-fashioned book in many ways, yet my very modern 11 year old just loved it -- I bought it sight unseen, and when I got it I was a little afraid that he might find it too young for him, but he absolutely adored it. The vocabulary does not talk down to children, and there are a lot of British words, and some that describe things most modern kids have never seen (a coal skuttle, for instance), so it was challenging enough to keep his attention. The heroine, Rosemary, has a sidekick named John, which I think also helped keep his attention -- like many boys, he likes to read about other boys in preference to girls. Th author brings the story to life slowly and magestically; it is very well written. A good read-aloud, too.

My dad, a teacher at a local polytech, would often bring home castoffs from the school's library in case I found something in them I'd enjoy. Amongst my pile of discovered treasures were illustrated paperbacks of The Wizard of Oz series, an SE Hinton that I found fascinating because it was so 'grown up' for me, and a water-damaged hardcover copy of Carbonel: The King of Cats (which had one page in it bound upside-down).

Because of all the travelling our family did, I've long since lost my childhood collection of books, but I will never forget the Summer evenings I spent imagining myself in the the far away land of Tottenham Grove - arguing with conceited black cats, eating cucumber sandwhiches for lunch, and muttering short but eloquent spells to asuage the bruised ego of a flying broom.

I admired Rosemary's take-charge, independent spirit, blushed at the hint of possible romance between her and John, and for a while, I checked every black cat I encountered for evidence of royalty.

After all these years, I'm excited to know that Carbonel is still in print because I can't wait to introduce this King of Cats to my own children. Very much a predecessor to Harry Potter, I know this story has enough thrills, suspense, fun and, yes, magic to keep even the most sophisticated young readers thoroughly entertained.

This book was one of my favorites growing up. It is an excellent tale of a magic cat and a witch's hat, broom, and cauldron, which 2 children bring together to restore Carbonel's rightful place as King of the Cats. Animal lovers will enjoy this book very much.

My 4th grade teacher read this to us. She made us put our heads on our desk while she read to us, we all felt we were much too old for this book but were instantly drawn in and couldn't wait till she got to the end. I loved this book as a child, and as a parent, and now a grandparent. If your younger child loves Harry Potter, this is a great book, especially for a girl. It has a strong female protagonist and just enough humor, as well as mystery and magic, to keep everyone interested.

This was a favorite book from my childhood. I just ordered it for my own daughter, who just loves cats. (We have three.) Even though she's 15, she still loved reading "Carbonel: The King of Cats." I'm so pleased that it's back in print! Some children's books are so good that you don't have to be young to enjoy them. This is one.

High yield for shelf exams. THick, but quick and fast read. Borrow a copy. For step 2, use Pre-test pediatrics.

I wish I had found this book earlier in third year. Like others said, it's easy to read and since it's broken up into 60 chapters (which are each about ~10 minute chunks) it's great when you have little bits of free time throughout the day. Occasionally you'll read something that you'll want to look up elsewhere, but you can definitely use this as your primary textbook. I read this book ALONE, no blueprints, no A&L, no pre-test and my shelf score jumped into the 90's compared to the 50's before. Buy this book, it's absolutely money.

Case Files for Pediatrics is an easy-to-read high-yield source to study during the pediatric clerkship or review for Boards. It was a great adjunct for shelf exam preparation.

Although this is probably not adequate as a primary source when studying for the shelf, this book is excellent! For a study guide, it's actually a pretty enjoyable read. It contains 40 case scenarios that cover some common and not-so-common pediatric illnesses. It has also some useful tables, X-rays, and diagrams. I recommend using it in conjunction with Blueprints.

I started using Case Files halfway through my 3rd year as it was gaining popularity. My shelf grades soared with this light reading. Unfortunately, I had pediatrics before I learned about the Case Files series. So, for Step 2, I needed a good review source. I read this in 2 days and peds was one of my best sections on Step 2. I can't stress enough how the layout of this series lends to a high yield review that doesn't take extreme concentration. This series is almost all you need for third year!

The story of two half-brothers, one noble, the other freed, and their training as young centurions, first postings in Germania, and their rivalry. Set against the backdrop of the early Roman empire, first half of the first century A.D., the writer gives excellent detail and conveys a feeling of being a participant in the action. The first of a series. You won't want to loan it out!

You know the plot.
If you have ANY imagination, ANY lust for adventure, a desire to be really gripped by a book, THIS is the one ( of two ) to read.
Unlike many novels, one becomes involved with both sides of the conflict and can empathize with both the "good guys" and the "bad guys". In reality, there are none the way the story is presented.

BTW, the second of two is the sequel: The Barbarian Princess.

The third: The Emperor's games....... buy at your own risk

This first book of Damian Hunter's fabulous trilogy paints a vivid picture of life in ancient Rome. The text is remarkably accurate, from details of how to wear armor to what Roman soldiers did in boot camp and as duties in the legions. Excellent work that should definitely be reprinted!

The author brings the last third of the first century Roman empire to full bloom. For a period piece this has all of the essential elements. In twenty two chapters the author describes a world very different from ours while at the same time familiar in several aspects. There is romance, warfare, sibling rivalry, travel, politics, & a ton of personal angst.

But, at the heart of the story are two main themes. The unexpected romance between the Roman Centurion Correus with Freita a German slave girl. The conflict between the Romans & some Germanic tribes sets the stage for both the action & romance on the Roman empires northern border known as the "Agri Decumates." The six main characters are Correus, the son of a Roman general & a Gallic slave girl. Flavius, Correus' half-brother who is the legitimate son of Appius Julianus the former Legate of the tenth legion who fathered both. Aemelia, is the daughter who is promised in marriage to Flavius despite being madly in love with Correus. Freita is the very proud german slave girl who is saved from a harsh fate by Correus & they fall in love under the most difficult circumstances. For the Romans are at war with Nyall Sigmundson the Chieftain of her tribe the Semnones.

What was so appealing about this novel was that almost all of the characters were that they had depth & usually showed the human condition very well for a period piece. Whether it was a gruging admiration that the Romans & Germans showed each other, the sons seeking their fathers approval, or an almost never mentioned love affair between two slaves. This was a very fast & entertaining read.

This first volume is a story of two young brothers and junior officers coming of age in the same Roman legion on the German frontier. While some words are devoted to the politics and history of the time (A.D. 72 under Vespasian), the focus is on the brother's' rivalry for honors and women. The problem is that if you read this you will wish there were many more volumes in the series, but I have a feeling something bad happened to author or publisher. The name for the 2nd vol., set in Britain, changed. Some reviewers pan the third volume. The series stops far short of having the Appius brothers fight their way through all the frontier provinces (as the broad maps imply), and over as many women, and eventually try for the Imperium?

Book Creations, Inc. (Kent Family Chronicles, Wagons West) hired a capable and informed writer to fill out its plot for the series. The author is comfortable with Roman terms in context rather than ostentatiously didactic. I developed a respect and interest in the characters-Romans, slave, or free German-perhaps because all were handled sympathetically and we see them in their familes and marriages as well as on campaign as soldiers or warriors. Good maps and illustrations.

Es verdad, son para toda la familia, aunque es preferible que los padres le echen un ojito antes: Todos tenemos limites diferentes.

MI HIJO MAYOR ( 14 AÑOS )SE CARCAJEABA MUY FUERTE EN SU CUARTO..eche a correr alarmada..(Michael es muy serio)y no acostumbra leer...
Pero un amigo le presto este libro en la escuela, y mi hijo estaba tirado en el suelo, revolcandose de risa !
Hasta me invito a sentarme con el..y me leyo chistes mas de media hora...mientras se me quemaba la sopa !
Comimos sandwiches...¡pero valio la pena !

¡Qué buenos chistes! Casi el 90%, lo cual es único en un libro de chistes..y Es verdad, son para toda la familia, aunque es preferible que los padres le echen un ojito antes: Todos tenemos limites diferentes..: En mi opinión muy personal, yo se lo daría a ciegas a mis hijos de 14 años para arriba, y le contaría algunos chistes bien escogidos a mi niña de 7 años..

¨..pero son realmente buenos. ¡Te los recomiendo !

They are very good...I can assure it !

Jokes for kids, teenagers and grown ups... If you read this, you can tell jokes and make people of any age laugh...After laughing yourself!