D Books

As a widower,When I started reading your book it made me very sad because I related to the stories . Then I realized I wasn't alone . That I am normal . We are sometimes told how to handle our grief. Everyone need to handle their grief in there own way and not be critized for it ' Laurie you wrote the book BUT IT'S OUR BOOK a book we can share and know we aren't alone in grief
Thanks . This is a book every grievance counselor should read because it came from the heart of the people who lost someone .

Laurie's book helps people who are actively grieving to feel normal. It gives people permisssion to feel and draws them in as would a trusted friend and confidant. I know this by experience as I facilitate a grief support group and this has been their response.

I have been leading widowed support groups for several years. A variety of topics continue to be addressed by most widowed people. This book takes these topics and talks about them similar to the way they are discussed in a suport group. Many people are afraid to bring up items in group as they think they are going crazy or are the only people to feel as they do. Laurie-Ann's book brings out these issues and discusses them in a way that is applicable to every person who has lost their spouse or partner. Excellent book that every widowed person should have and read.

I write a newspaper column titled "Single Again" for the Orange County Register in southern California. I am in daily contact with new widows and widowers. I recommend to them Laurie-Ann's book. It will help them fight their way through the first year after losing their spouse.

Laurie-Ann lost her husband unexpectedly. She describes her way through the pain and then provides encouraging tips for people having similar experiences. A 5-star must read. Highly recommended.

Tom Blake

Orange County Register

This book will pull you in and never let you go. Hearing the stories and thoughts of others within the backdrop of Laurie-Ann's own story is both haunting and heart-warming--whether you've experienced a loss like the author's or not (yet). You'll cry and you'll laugh. And you'll want to talk about this book when you're done. For those going through that very personal journey of recovering from the death of a loved one, which is on ongoing process that never really ends, this book can be your best friend who holds tighly onto your hand.

Awesome read! Enjoyable, action packed and full of edge of your seat adventure. I felt as if I was in the story and living it. The Author's real world experiences bring to life the story of Trooper Blake and the exciting, perilous life of a Trooper in the Bush of Alaska. The hardest part about reading this book was putting it down!

Alaska Justice was a fun and seemingly realistic read of a cop who uses a Super Cub to find the bad guys.

I liked how the author used the geograpy of the local area, and did not over dramatize the events.

A enjoyable and fun to read book.

If you're an Alaska junkie like I am, you'll love this book. An ace pilot who flies anything and everything in the worst weather that Alaska has to offer, Jack Blake gets his man time after time. Author Kincaid takes you into the back country of the Final Frontier and offers a glimpse at the remote lifestyles and eccentric ways of the people who live there. Far from the typical tourist locales, Alaska Justice shows a side of our biggest state through the eyes of a working guy who just happens to be a lawman and pilot with major cojones. Highly recommended.

Alaska Justice

Ha! I have the average reader of Kincaid's Alaska Justice at a disadvantage. You see I know Jack Blake, I know the beautiful Wildlife Officer Jet. I also know the nit picker First Shirts and lunatic killer Jack had to run aground near Kennecott/McCarthy on that cold, snowing winter day and night. You will thoroughly enjoy a captivating non stop adventure! You see, I really do know Mike, or Jack, and expected a very fine story and was not one iota disappointed.

Steven A. Knutson
Author of It Takes One To Catch One - Confessions of an Alaskan Wildlife Trooper

Alaska Justice is a great adventure for first time author Michael Kincaid. His experiences as an Alaskan State trooper and bush pilot make the experiences for hero, Jack Blake exciting, funny and sad. The writing is refreshingly creative with twists and turns leaving you wanting more. This is one of those books that you want to read in one sitting and then are sad when it is over.

Great book! Written with both heart and mind! Very helpful and simple and deep at the same time!
Thank you!
p.s.read it slowly, let the book happen to you...

"All You Need Is HART" is a holistic guidebook to help, you, the reader experience a life of abundance. Issues covered in the book include: Raising self esteem, enhancing relationships, keys to success, overcoming addictions, sexuality, anger, parenting, and healing.

The author introduces several techniques she has developed in the HART program, self talk, visualization, and the use of affirmations. The effectiveness of the program is demonstrated through the use of case study examples. Each case is developed with a statement of the problem, suggested therapy, and the accomplished results. As a reader I was drawn into the narrative and eager to use the exercises, and affirmations as I recognized areas needing attention in my own experience.

Helene Rothschild is well qualified to author this important and unique manual. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Helene is founder of the Institute for Creative Therapy and has developed this well documented and thoroughly proven process. Rothschild has labeled this program of Creative Therapy (HART). Rothschild's approach to unresolved personal issues has proven to be "Holistic and Rapid Transformation."

This straightforward guide offers creative techniques for building healthy relationships, experiencing healing from physical suffering, as well as in areas of self discovery, inner growth and personal development.

Reviewed by Louise Bickley for Reader Views (12/06)

The author's main point is that "you can create love, joy and abundance now." The way to do this is through applying the principles of HART--holistic and rapid transformation. Ms. Rothschild is obviously a knowledgeable contemporary therapist with a thorough grasp of the principles of cognitive therapy. Her invention of the HART method is catchy and holds the potential for some memorable concepts that can endure in the minds of her readers.

I loved the two metaphors linking HART to a house with three levels and also the sick tree. The house model illustrated beautifully Freud's three levels of consciousness. Something else I like about Ms. Rothschild's writing is that she takes complex, technical concepts and translates them into clear language for the lay person. I believe her book is especially useful to beginners on the journey toward better emotional and mental health.

One nugget of gold that caught my fancy was the author's suggestion (page 115) that children be given classes in problem solving from first grade up. I hope she writes a whole book on this subject for parents and schools to use.

Some suggestions that could have perhaps made this book even better are the following:

* I wish she had done more with the house metaphor throughout the book.

* I would have liked to see more connections throughout referring back to HART and how it is being applied. As it is, I had to keep going back to where she first outlined its meaning and asking how this related to that.

* The book contains enough material for three or four individual books. At times I felt overwhelmed with too much information and lengthy, tedious lists. For better or for worse, modern readers expect briefer presentations--short bulleted or bordered lists, for example.

I believe that Ms. Rothschild has much to share with a world hungry for her expertise. I see within this one book, "All You Need is HART!" another three or four books. Two such publications could be one expanding upon the house metaphor and another on problem solving skills for children. I look forward to seeing more of her works in the future.

Written by Helene Rothchild, MS, MS, MFT, All You Need is Hart: Create Love, Joy, and Abundance - Now! is an empowering self-help book that guides the reader through a process of Holistic And Rapid Transformation. Grounded in basic principles such as "our minds are like magnets and therefore we attract what we are thinking" and "what people say or do is about them and not you. You are okay no matter what people say or do!", the HART process is a compassionate, self-esteem building, consciousness-raising philosophy to improving one's mental, physical, and spiritual life. Sample exercises for the reader to perform or write answers to help reinforce the positive lessons and transformational tools presented in this upbeat and insightful resource.

"Are you ready to be happier, healthier, and more successful in every area of your life?"
~Helene Rothschild

Reading "All You Need Is HART!" is similar to wrapping yourself in the most beautiful, warm, loving blanket of understanding you can imagine. Within the pages of this book, Helene Rothschild offers insight into beliefs and fears we need to address in order to balance our lives. By allowing the clearing out of negative emotions, we can embrace new positive beliefs that invite success into our lives.

This book will help you to:

Overcome Phobias
Heal serious physical problems by removing negative emotions
Understand the 20 fears that are blocking you from prosperity
Comfort yourself in times of conflict
Enhance your Self-Esteem
Overcome Addictions
Lose Weight
Create more financial success
Understand how to move from fear to love
Balance your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual life goals

Helene Rothschild's transformational approach to life allows powerful positive thoughts to create a new reality. This goes beyond thinking positively and addresses specific areas of personal growth. A notebook or journal is helpful. Jotting down specific areas of conflict will encourage you to refocus on those areas in order to overcome fears and conflicts that may stem from childhood experiences.

"Addictions are what we do to the extreme in order to run away from our emotional pain caused by our negative decision. They are usually the symptoms and not the causes of our problems." ~Helene Rothschild

I have recently been thinking about how much of our adult life is spent overcoming our childhood. Are you stuck in a pattern of negative thoughts and actions? What is holding you back from success?

Fun questionnaires, visualizations, insightful commentary, examples from real life and a thoughtful approach to conflict resolution makes this book essential reading. Some of the things you may find yourself doing while reading this book include:

1. Writing down lists of things you want to change in your life to encourage more success.

2. Encountering moments of enlightenment about what is really holding you back from success. I wrote down 12 things I need to change in the next year. I had a startling revelation on page 85 when I realized how something my father said to me as a teenager is still affecting how I think about my life today.

3. Writing down goals for the next year! This book is excellent in this regard and it can help you plan out goals for an area of your life. This may include your career, relationships, sexuality, weight issues and health.

The affirmations in this book are especially healing. There is also a stunningly beautiful 8-page love letter that expresses the deepest heart desires anyone could ever feel or try to express. Rewriting the letter while including some of the topics of high concern could create one of the best love letters you ever give someone.

"All You Need Is HART (Holistic And Rapid Transformation)" is truly based on accepting yourself and being brave enough to love who you truly are as a soul. Helene Rothschild gives guidance and presents a safe, comforting place of acceptance where you can grow, change and become more successful in every area of your life. I found this book to be a highly empowering read and I believe this book will change your life in dramatic and healing ways.

~The Rebecca Review

If you don't know this book, buy it immediately. It takes American film criticism up to about 1970 and coincides with the time Sarris was involved with the (real) Village Voice, Jonas Mekas, American Cahiers,and the founding of the NY Film Festival and the national society of film critics. It took me about five years of reading his reviews until I finally got it - Sarris had understood that the most profound thoughts and themes were played out with style and panache by genre filmmakers with personal obsessions and ideas that did not require Western Union to spell it out.

There's some things to quibble about (I never could see why he thought so highly of Blake Edwards, but I keep trying because I trust his insight. Even Sarris can change his mind as he did on Billy Wilder a few years back).

If you are a film buff and have not discovered his work (also recommended:
Confessions of a Cultist; The John Ford Mystery Book; You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet are among the best) start here. That goes double if you experience guilty pleasure and see things no one else does in people like Anthony Mann, Michael Powell, Sam Fuller, Max Ophuls, Budd Boetticher or James Whale. I have often given this book as a gift to film loving friends. It opens a world of discovery and rapport when a friends "gets it" and suddenly, you both have a shared sensibility and frame of reference.
Also, check out his website for yearly top ten lists and also the work of his wife Molly Haskell (especially good on Howard Hawks).

This volume parses the good guys from the bad guys, tells you whom you should love and why, and summarily dismisses the ones not worth taking seriously. In other words, for good or bad, it arms you, as will no other film book ever written, with a set of eloquently-stated prejudices that may seal off certain directors from your serious consideration for all time. (It would be too glib to say that this is the books best and worst point.) Suffice to say, it has taken years for me to tear down the wall Sarris built between me, as a budding cinephile, and William Wyler, Billy Wilder, John Huston and even John Frankenheimer, for that matter. (These are just a few of the ones I think he was, or may have been, wrong about.)

But I love this book and always find it worth picking up to reread a few entries, for two or three reasons that never grow old:

1) Sarris IS an absolutely remarkable writer. His prose bristles with alternately apt and acid phrases and insights. The parallel between Ambrose Bierce and Sarris has grown on me through the years. (I think it was Sarris who brought currency to the word "pretentious"-- possibly THE serious put-down word from the 70s to the 90s, possibly to the present-- by the way. He used it with unerring surgical delicacy, as a bludgeon.)

2) He is hard to argue with in his negative evaluation of certain other respected directors. Thirty-five years ago, Sarris renounced Kubrick, noting, in typical form, that the very fact that he made one film every 5 years seemed to be all the proof his advocates needed of his integrity. Ouch! And he said that Kubrick is the director of the best coming attractions in the business.

This last is highly prophetic of the present general situation, when Hollywood has made a sort of science of over-selling weak films with absurdly hyperbolic trailers that often have little to do with the tone or experience of the films they advertise. This comment indicates also how much of Sarris is audaciously arguable, and out of synch with conservative academia re Kubrick and just about everything else. --Not a bad thing, as far as I am concerned.) And I think he was also decades ahead of the curve in recognizing Keaton as Chaplin's better.

3) He has been, for decades, an antidote to Pauline Kael. Period.

If you know the directors covered well enough to take it all with a grain of salt where needed, this book is probably the best read on movies and their directors from the second and third quarters of the 20th Century that will ever be written. THE great mapping out of this seminal period by the auteur theorys chief surveyor-- and a fun and drolly amusing place to pick up your snazzy-looking anti-philistine, anti-pretentious attitude off-the-rack.

There are few books on cinema that are more important than this title. To any serious student of film this book is perhaps the only book that you will refer to as long as you watch films.

Extolling the virtues of The American Cinema would be too hard. Beside being an invaluable reference for cinema between 1929-1968, it also contains wonderful peices of film theory. Because of this The American Cinema can be read a few pages at a time or you can completely dwelve into the material. No matter the method, Sarris will engage you in a meaningful dialogue of film. Film literature is rarely able to be this give and take. Those with an above average inclination toward cinema should purchase.

When it first appeared in the late '60s, Sarris' book was literally memorized by critics, students and teachers. It provided a root approach to discussing film, quickly absorbed, and readily shaped to one's personal tastes. A beautiful combination of reference and aesthetic, it ushered in the era of "the director as superstar," and was completely absorbed by everyone in film. Unfortunately, its absorption was so complete, the author, Mr. Sarris, was for the most part uncredited and unrewarded.

I absoloutely loved the vivid diary of Anacaona, leader of Haiti.She is the golden flower throughout the story and i know that Edwidge Danticat is definitaly the 2nd best ROYAL DIARY WRITER,(first being Kathryn Lasky)This diary tells the true story of the beautiful Anacaona,golden flower of Haiti.This book is based throughout a series of symbols Anacaona used to write her days,just like how the other young women of the other royal diay series wrote down their days into perfect little pages(except for Victoria who stole hers)I thought this book was great and intersting even though theepilogue was sadder than the one of Kaiulani and Anastasia.I also love the radiant beauty that shined through the face of Princes Anacaona of Haiti in the front cover.The words were well chosen and said throughout and i especially like the way the white people said as bad and black good(this happened in the royal diary of Nzingha)I didn't find one bit of the story dull and absorbed the beauty of this beautiful woman in an exotic country,Haiti and independant that will always be rememberd.

PS: I CANT WAIT TILL Catherine-The great journey COMES OUT!

The royal diary of Anacaona is excellent, staring with Anacaona's marriage to Chief Caonabo, which made her ruler with Caonabo of Maguana. Next, the couple have a baby daughter whom they name, Higuamota. The spaniards start invading Maguana, and all the rest of Haiti, which results in war between the two people. The Taino people are disappearing, but if you read this book, you will find out if Anacaona survives the war or not.

i collece the royal diaries series, so this book fit nicely on the shelf. arrival time was prompt, and the condition of the book was fantastic.

Anacona was a pretty good book. It kept me reading and all that jazz but at times I felt it was sorta... lifeless. Almost as If it wasn't a real diary. I can totally understand because she's not a very well known person. I liked the story and stuff. Well, I think my main point is it's great but not as great as some of the other spectacular Royal Diaries. READ THEM ALL!

Anacaona was a woman born to the Taino people of Xaragua, what is now modern Haiti. Her Baba (Father) and Bibi (Mother) raise her and her brother, Behichio, to rule together. However, when Anacaona's premonitions suggest that she rule in the neighboring nation of Maguana she accepts a proposal from Caonabo, the reigning Cacique (king) to be his wife. As Cacica (queen) Anacaona takes on many duties and learns to carve in the way of her husband's people. But a threat arrives in the form of the first European settlers who have landed on their shores in search of gold and it is up to Anacaona and her husband to ensure that their people survive this threat no matter what the costs or means.

Approaching a subject like "Anacaona" when you know nothing about the actual person has its pros and cons. A pro is that you learn a touch of history, the culture of the people, and various other tidbits of info. An obvious con is that any of the historical details that have been embellished don't stand out so much. For me, knowing next to nothing about Haiti, this tribe, and woman specifically this was an interesting way to introduce me to her life and how she resisted the colonialization of her homeland. It made me want to do what this series is designed to do, research and read more about this fascinating area and period of time. One thing I did notice that struck me odd was how seemingly similar some of the details of her people were to that of the Mayan people. The flattening of the children's foreheads and the belief that the people came from corn originally was just a few of the many similarities. But there were also many characteristics that differentiated them and made them unique for their own way of life.

This was a great way for me to kick off my reading of the "Royal Diaries" series. I will definitely be reading more in the future, and I especially look forward to reading the ones about the non-westerners history and point of view (the Mayan queen book looks fascinating). All in all, this is a fantastic series for kids, adults, and anyone who wishes to learn about these amazing women and a little of what drove them to be truly memorable.

I always have trouble thinking of what to talk about on dates. This book gave me great ideas for conversation and great insights into the dating scene.

This is definitely a five star book- a laugh a minute, plus great info. I can keep reading it over and over again.

I couldn't stop laughing. The jokes are fabulous. It was also very informative. I really learned alot about dating and marriage. It's a must read for everyone.

Wow, , I'm giving this book to every "single" person I know. I think I'll give it to marrieds also. Even if their having a rough time socially, they can have a good laugh.

I loved it! Dating is pressure but at least this book helps you laugh while you are going through it. It's a great book to take on a date. It gives you what to talk about and what to laugh about.

Business like war requires strategy, intelligence, etc., as exemplified brilliantly by David Goldenberg in The Art of War 3: The Cannons of Commerce. This book has a foreword, 13 chapters, an afterword, three appendices, a detailed bibliography and an index. Besides its timeliness, this well-written book offers great depth and experience-based knowledge. Different people will find a specific chapter(s) particularly appealing as their circumstances change. Dr. Goldenberg has provided a concise background about Sun-tzu. Those readers not familiar with Sun-tzu's classic will find this a pioneering interpretation of one of the rare books to have survived over 2,500 years. It is one of the leading books on strategic thinking and is widely embraced book by leaders and others. The author has brought to public attention many simple but usually missed vital points such as "consumers dominate the world of commerce. Those ignorant of this harsh fact mistakenly rely on a series of fallacies." Anyone who has called the customer service for help of major organization would appreciate the quote above. The author clarifies other crucial nuances, such as "invention is not innovation. Innovation commercializes a discovery or invention." The book brings well thought out and insightful attention to bear on many important topics; among them are leadership, weaknesses and strengths, and contingencies. Decision-makers at all levels of business and government would benefit greatly by reading this book carefully, rereading it regularly and seeing that their subordinates do so as well.

For two and a half millenia, business and military leaders alike have relied on the timeless wisdom of "The Art of War," by Sun-tzu, a Chinese military strategist.

What would Sun-tzu advise corporate directors and executives if he were alive today? While Dr. Goldenberg is not the first to ask this question, he may be the first to answer it usefully.
His modern-day "translation" of Sun-tzu's sage advice brings to life timeless wisdom for an everchanging world.

Art 3 offers sound guidance on strategy, citing important legal precedent: Paramount Communications v. Time Inc. (1989)--a case outlining the traits essential for "bone fide" strategic planning, including connection to long-term mission, assessment of threats and opportunities, and ongoing monitoring of progress against plan.

But topics covered here don't all hover at the 30,000+ strategy realm. Some zoom down to earth--to shed light on operational topics such as resource allocation and markets. Innovation and competitive intelligence also receive insightful attention. Extras include appendices, including a superb one on avoiding catastrophic failure.

Corporate directors serious about their oversight duties, as well as executives desiring to steer clear of trouble, will not want to face the future without this inspired guide.

Written in a crisp style with profound depth and knowledge, Dr. Goldenberg has made a significant contribution to business strategy. There is genuine wisdom here for corporate leaders, in a radical departure from traditional Sun-tzu analyses.

For this reader the very best of this fine work is in Appendix One - Shareholder Value Debunked. If one accepts that the concept of shareholder value led to the spurious inflation of share value to increase the value of management's stock options, then our current corporate scandals may have been avoided.

Dr. Goldenberg, thank you for sharing your abundant intellectual capital!

O. Lee Duff
Anova Inc.

This book was very easy to read. I thought it was very insightful to how to do business. I have read many of the Art of War books and this one really was a positive look at business and commerce. Well done.

"The Art of War 3: The Canons of Commerce is written in the style of Sun-tzu Wu himself: terse, brisk language that simplifies today's world of business complexity, a world burdened by 2,500 years of commerce since the general uttered his declarative instructions to his warriors. I feel like I am reading Hemingway.

"The Three Appendices alone are worth the price of a trip to your favorite bookstore. There, among other highlights, David Goldenberg's brilliant analysis boils down the University of Chicago's contributions to economic literature to something less than two paragraphs." David W. Crain, Ph.D., Adunct Professor of Strategy, Pepperdine University and the University of Southern California.

This is an excellent book and very realistic and practical for use with day-to-day interactions with others.

This book is by far the most helpful book I've ever read. It is very informative, but in plain words that almost anyone can understand. The exercises it suggests really do help. I'm only half-way through it, but I've already made significant changes in my behavior. It really helped me understand the different communication styles and how to tweak my style to make me more satisfied with my communication with others. It's so simple to do! I've always been lazy about change or given up too early, but this truly couldn't be any easier.

Great resource. I tend to be overly aggressive, and read this to help me tone it down and just be assertive instead. I'd assume it would work equally as well for a passive or passive-agressive person looking to become more assertive as well. Contains lots of information on related behaviors, even gives some tips on controlling your breathing to calm you down in stressful situations that can lead to less than ideal responses on your behalf. Some chapters were irrelevant to my needs so I just skipped through them, but I'm sure they'd be useful to some.

If you're reading this review, you probably suspect that you have a problem with assertiveness, so take the first step towards improving your life by purchasing this book. If you have a problem saying no to unreasonable requests, if your legitimate and reasonable requests for what you need are repeatedly denied, ignored, or trivialized, if you feel surrounded by manipulative, controlling people, if you have been in a long-term verbally abusive relationship, if you are easily intimidated by aggressive people, or even if you're just mildly curious, this book will be invaluable to you. It's not just a quick read, though. It has thought-provoking exercises to help you determine why you have difficulty asserting yourself as well as practice exercises to prepare you to be assertive when the need arises. Even if you don't think you need improvement, this book is a great resource on communication.

Excellent resource for how to deal with PA's and others-the book's no nonsense approach (yes, it's hard to change and yes your significants others will resist you), exercises, and examples give you inspiration without alot of nonsense and over the top 'you can do it' every paragraph.
Accessible and easily readable, this practical guide will help you get what you need or establish your personal boundaries without all the new age style rhetoric.

When I began reading this book,I anticipated a telling of the nazi shadow engulfing the Jews of Austria in the style of-say- Primo Levi, or even Zweigs recollections in his 'World of Yesterday' autobiography. But Appelfelds style is unique. Yes, the nazi shadow is coming to engulf.As readers we know what their fate will be. But Appelfeld tells the story from the universal human perspective where we evade reality and interpret everything the way we want it to be, not as it actually is.

Jews are gathered in Badenheim for their annual vacation. The 'sanitation' department has ordered all Jews to register. The residents know they will be going to Poland.Dr Pappenheim talks of the new opportunities; how it is essential people return to their own country of origin. (The atmosphere of evading reality is heightened as nobody asks 'Why?') Langmann is angry. He is Austrian. Why should he be uprooted over a mistake? Peter the pastry shop owner blames it all on Pappenheim for bringing decadence to the town with his art festivals.(Again, no one asks what has this got to do with their situation-even though Peters accusation is a common myth espoused by the nazis.) Fussholdt carries on writing his major critiques on jewish philosophers and culture whom he dispises despite his own judaism.

Throughout, there are no Cassandra characters. Only quickly appeased comments (They took my house is somehow turned into an understandable action by the residents.)Even at the end, Pappenheim is convinced they cannot have far to travel when 40 filthy cattle trucks arrive at the station to take them to Poland; its all ok.



This book is a mere 148 pages and must be read in one sitting to gain the full effect. It transcends the era and the crime it portrays, it tells you of mans fatal flaw in disbelieving the evil that can occur. Trusting to decency and reason to quell brutality. You know that these people know, but even as a reader, you would feel uneasy in trying to break the truth to them.



Appelfeld has a unique way of writing and a message for both his own people and all of mankind. This was an honour to read.

Badenheim is a quiet, idyllic holiday town in Eastern Europe. The 'leader' of the town, Dr Pappenheim, is busy preparing for the annual festival, writing letters and sending telegrams to beg and plead for musicians and artists from Vienna.

While the preparations are under way, the Sanitation Department begins quietly undertaking a rigorous inspection of each and every house and shop in Badenheim. Among the many questions asked is how many and who of the residents are Jewish. The vacationers and locals alike think nothing of the questions, nonchalantly confirming or denying their religion, and returning to their food, their wine, their entertainment. Here and there, a few people discuss the increasing powers of the Sanitation Department - they have just recently closed the Post Office - but nobody seems to mind. Badenheim is quiet and peaceful, and that is how they like it.

Time passes. The impresario, Dr Pappenheim, is still writing letters, but he senses that they are going off into the void, never to return. A few - very few - letters are still allowed into Badenheim, but for the most part, the Sanitation Department has closed off the city. Guards are posted to deny entry or exit to any man, woman or child of Jewish descent. It happens so slowly that nobody really notices, but at one stage, almost all of the non-Jewish people have gone, and of the tiny trickle of visitors allowed into Badenheim, every person is a Jew.

There is a quiet horror to Badenheim 1939. Throughout this very short book, it seems as though with each page, the oppression and terror of World War II is approaching the Jewish people of Badenheim, but they never see it. With every freedom slowly being denied - the shops are closed, the gates are sealed, outside communication is forbidden - the reader is left to wonder if this time, if this time when the Sanitation Department closes the pastry shop, say, will they understand? But they never do. Everything happens over such a long period of time, and so quietly, that nobody really seems to realise when they are suddenly trapped, except for a few minor characters who are slowly going mad, the cracks in the calm facade they have wrapped themselves in widening with every minute.

This book is most effective because we know what happened to the Jews post-1939. We know where they are going, and what will likely happen to them. The Sanitation Department assures them that they will be transplanted to Poland, and everything will be fine. They believe because they have to believe. Towards the end of the novel, the razor wire, the guns, the dogs all make an appearance. To ignore what is happening is suicidal, and yet they do. After all, how could a race of people imagine that they would be persecuted in such a terrifying manner? Surely, their minds would shied away from such horrible information, from the mere idea that a man - a country - wanted to eradicate six million of them? And yet, that is what happened, and that is how the novel ends, a perfect, bleak, dark ending that is all the more horrifying for how completely reasonable every single tiny little step leading up to their incarceration inside a derelict train, headed, presumably, for Auschwitz.

Badenheim 1939 is a powerful book because it shows how easy it is to accept something unacceptable, if it is presented in small, reasonable, easily palatable pieces. None of these characters are overly bad, or good - they are absolutely normal. They squabble, they argue, they love, they laugh, they sing, they cry. In fact, throughout the entire novel, nothing untoward happens to any of them - except for the encroaching holocaust.

Aharon Appelfeld's beautiful and highly polished novel, Badenheim 1939 was originally published in Hebrew in 1975. Although the Holocaust forms both the historical backdrop of the novel as well as its imaginative focus, it does so from behind-the-scenes and, as such, is subtle and implicit in its assertions, all to its enormous credit.

Badenheim 1939 is set at an Austrian vacation resort during the spring of 1939. A seemingly unremarkable assortment of middle-class Jews on holiday have gathered at Badenheim, only to later be united by what would become history's most atrocious turning point. The "Music Festival" resort of Badenheim will, soon enough, become a place of Jewish detainment from which the only exit will be via forced transport to Poland.

The vacationers, however, for the most part, remain in blissful unawareness of what is to come. Spring is in the air and summer is about to blossom; the Jews spend their days strolling the hotel gardens, visiting the cities cafés, sampling strawberry tartes at the local pastry shops, engaging in sports and bickering, gossiping, bargaining and complaining, much as any other vacationer. The mounting horror, which every reader of this sensitive and elegant book will realize, is made all the greater by the fact that it is a horror the characters simply cannot, or will not, see.

Badenheim 1939 is written with an artistic subtlety and insight with which most modern readers remain sadly unfamiliar. Appelfeld's concern, in this book, is with the prelude to the German catastrophe and not with its actual occurrence. The author, himself a Holocaust survivor, makes virtually no mention of the Nazi atrocities and shows no interest in the graphic portrayal of the brutalities committed. Appelfeld is certainly not oblivious to the facts, he simply has chosen to place his focus elsewhere. In Badenheim 1939, the Holocaust is an incipient threat rather than a full-blown horror.

Appelfeld's prose is more akin to lyric poetry than to narrative fiction and shows a tremendous gift for rhetorical restraint that is rare among writers. This is a beautiful and quiet tale, exquisitely told with imagery, understatement and indirection. The effects of the narrative accumulate and change in much the same way the seasons do, in increments that are minimal and yet extraordinarily moving. This is history, but it is history perceived at its most mundane. In this remarkable manner, Appelfeld creates something of extraordinary beauty and yet, manages to intensify the tragedy.

In the end, Appelfeld's characters do, of course, suffer the horrors that befell all Jews, of every nation, whether directly or indirectly. The genius of Badenheim 1939 lies in its projections of a gradual, incipient menace and its portraits of Jewish reactions, which range from ready adjustment to slowly unfolding despair.

It is in the space between the reader's knowledge of what is beginning to unfold for the Jews and the latter's own blindness to it that the book registers its most powerful impact, once again doing so without any direct reference to the ovens, the gas chambers or the camps. Appelfeld's artistic beauty lies in his amazing ability to suggest rather than describe. Giorgio Bassani was able to do something similar in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis but Appelfeld is, perhaps, the more superior.

Rarely has the tragic end point of Jewish fate been invoked no clearly and disturbingly and yet so indirectly. We come away from Badenheim 1939 as though from a finely-rendered tone poem, complete with the knowledge that we have been absorbed into a special moment in time and in feeling; in this case, the moment just before the trains departed for Poland, the final pause before the end.

Badenheim is a an Austrian resort town whose denizens are almost all Jewish. This short novel describes the reactions of the residents of the town as preparations are made to deport them ' to the East'. It describes the gradual series of changes in which the town is slowly closed down, and its residents denied their privileges and enjoyments. A number of characters stories are highlighted including the Impressario Pappenheim who has for years organized the Music and Dramatic Festivals in the town.The story of a half - Jewish waitress who identifies with the Jews and who injures herself in desperation is also told. Also an assimilated writer who mocks Herzl and Buber and worships the satiricial Karl Kraus is despicted. Most of these characters are living in the delusion that they are about to be deported from Austria to go to a better life in the East, in Poland. Appelfeld is a master of depicting these small games people play with themselves, these small self- deceptions which keep them from facing a horrible truth.
In the end the town closes down and the residents and vacationers of Badehnheim are taken away. When four old dirty trains hook up with them they still refuse to see the reality. And the concluding thought of escape is that they must be going 'on a short journey since the cars are so dirty'.
Assimilated Jews, often self- hating but even more often painfully human in clinging to delusions of their own normalcy and safety are the subject of this work. It is all prelude to the Disaster and Destruction the Shoah which is to destroy them all.

Aharon Appelfeld, one of Israel's greatest writers, has had only a handful of his 40 books translated into English. It's too bad. Then again, it's too bad Appelfeld didn't write "Badenheim 1939" under the pen name "Albert Camus" --- if he had, this 148-page novel would be taught alongside "The Stranger" and regarded, rightly, as a modern classic.

Appelfeld is a very unlikely writer. But then, it's remarkable that he's alive. Born in Romania in 1932, he was a quiet boy, an only child. He was just 8 when the Nazis shot his mother and deported him and his father to a concentration camp in the Ukraine, at which point they were separated for twenty years. Aharon escaped to Russia, where he was a shepherd. In 1944, at 12, he joined the Russian Army. When the war ended, he made his way to Italy and, finally, to Palestine. He spoke so many languages he couldn't express himself in any. And he had only a year or two of schooling. But he managed to enroll in college in Jerusalem and, soon after, to begin writing stories in Hebrew.

Appelfeld has one great subject: understanding what happened to his people. "I'm dealing with a civilization that has been killed," he has said. "How to represent it in the most honorable way --- not to equalize it, not to exaggerate, but to find the right proportion to represent it, in human terms." What kept him from depression, bitterness, suicide? "I've never been an angry person. This is what saved me."

"Badenheim 1939" --- the first of Appelfeld's books to be translated from Hebrew to English --- is a modest, precise, even-handed tale. As it should be; this is a simple story, of a single season in a resort town favored by Jews. As the novel begins, Spring has arrived. So have the musicians. And the first tourists.

Dr. Pappenheim is the local impresario; he's all bustle. Expect to see him at the Post Office, sending telegrams and opening letters. But this season is unlike all others. For one thing, the Sanitation Department has increased powers --- it's now authorized to undertake "independent investigations." For reasons not made clear, these investigations include the construction of fences and rolls of barbed wire. Appliances appear, "suggestive of preparations for a public celebration." The visitors to the resort expect "fun and games."

And, indeed, the office of the Sanitation Department is starting to look like a travel agency, thanks to the new signs: "The air in Poland is fresher" and "Get to know the Slavic Culture" and "Labor is our Life." There's plenty of time to think about those signs; walks are now forbidden, guests must stay on the grounds of the hotel. It's a nice break in a dull day when the Sanitation Department puts maps on Poland on sale.

The Post Office closes. Just as well. No mail is arriving --- and who knows if letters are getting out? But more people suddenly show up, all of them Jews. Here for the Music Festival? Apparently not.

And now it's Fall. The cakes of summer are no more. Ditto cigarettes. Lunch is barley soup and dry bread. Concern? Bad dreams? Of course. But no one can really believe that what is happening is more than an inconvenience. At worst, a mistake.

At last a train appears at the station. An engine with four filthy freight cars. The last paragraph shows how the worst thing you can imagine can be sold to you as something else. How easily you and yours can be lost. And, in one of the greatest sentences ever to end a book, how you can go to your doom still believing it's all going to be okay.

'Balthazar' picks up where Durrell left off in 'Justine' not chronologically, but from a different perspective. The doctor Balthazar has paid a visit to the narrator of Justine, and gives him a text called the Great Intilinear, which details what has already unfolded in the previous novel. The fact that Lawrence Durrell was trying to explore the idea of relativity in the Alexandria Quartet is almost completely inconsequential to what makes it any good. What remains interesting in this text is his rich prose and broad canvas. He his building a world that is situated in both the real and the imaginary. Even as 'Balthazar' devolves into elements of Orientalism, it remains an extremely fine novel.

"Balthazar" is the second of the sibling tomes of Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet". The novel allows the reader to dive again deep into Alexandrian life and see everything what happens already in "Justine" from a different angle.

Darley, the narrator, still living in seclusion on the remote Greek Island, has sent the story (i.e. Justine) to one of the Alexandrian friends, Balthazar, the Jewish, gay doctor interested in philosophy and theology, initiator of the Kabbalah group, suspected of spying activity. Balthazar during his short visit on the island gives Darley the manuscript back together with a substantial amount of notes, which (with Darley's comments) are reconstituted in this volume. Darley was prompted to add a lot of the notes, as, reflecting upon them, he realized that despite his doubts, expressed in "Justine", many things he took for granted are completely different than he thought.

Balthazar sees the events described in "Justine" from his own point of view, and, having often more information or just different sources than Darley, his versions of events add to or change the descriptions from the first volume. New characters are introduced, and those, who were merely mentioned or hinted upon (Pursewarden, Mountolive, Leila, Narouz), become central, and their preoccupations and emotions are at the first plane. These shifts, instead of clarifying things that were blurred and mysterious in "Justine" make the narrative even more slippery and allusive. New avenues open for each event, tales within tales are discovered, which need their own explanation, and the atmosphere is even more dreamy... The motivations of ome characters, especially Nessim, seem to change completely from what Darley perceived, as new events are revealed. The search for the truth obviously cannot end here, so the reader needs to proceed to "Mountolive".

Alexandria becomes even more of a main character in this novel, and definitely the one with the strongest and versatile personality. Most of the other characters, struck by destructive love (again the analysis of love is one of the main themes, although the secret service intrigue gets more momentum), are impressionable, prone to spontaneous, sudden behaviors, and transient. The climactic event, as the hunting party was in Justine, is this time the carnival ball, where the reader roams the streets together with the characters in disguise... and is a witness to another death.

"Balthazar" is even more full of aphorisms than "Justine" - there seems to be a sentence for any occasion, and whereas the generalizations of love may appear trivial, childish even, the truths about literature and theoretical background of Durrell's enterprise to create a novel which would reflect its times, are amazingly formulated and put into the mouth of the surprising number of the writer characters (look especially for what Pursewarden has to say).

In summary, this is another delightful volume, different than "Justine" and only giving the reader the appetite for more of Durrell's Alexandria!

BALTHAZAR, the second novel in Lawrence Durrell's ALEXANDRIA QUARTET, is a less daunting proposition than its predecessor, JUSTINE. The author points out that the first three novels (these two plus MOUNTOLIVE) all overlap in time, looking at the same events from different perspectives; only the fourth book, CLEA, is a true sequel. Nonetheless, it is essential to read JUSTINE first; the greater clarity and expansiveness of BALTHAZAR is possible only because the reader already knows most of the characters and events; there is not enough explanation for the story to stand on its own.

The set-up is simple. The narrator (who now has a name, Darley) receives a surprise visitor to his Greek island, Balthazar, the doctor who had played a secondary role in the earlier novel. He bears with him the manuscript of JUSTINE, which Darley had sent him for comment, and has just time to return it together with his own interleaved notes and marginalia, before his ship leaves again. So Darley/Durrell is left with this huge volume of new material, which he calls "the great Interlinear" as though it were a sacred text. He realizes that several of his assumptions in the original story were mistaken, and so is forced to tell it again, sometimes quoting Balthazar directly, sometimes reimagining it in his own voice.

The book is clearer than JUSTINE in several respects, as though emerging from smoke into light. Durrell seems to use fewer unexplained foreign words, though he still breaks into French at the drop of a hat. The chapters are shorter and more clearly marked. The narrative dwells longer on a few connected characters, or a linear sequence of events. While the climactic duck shoot was the only action set-piece in the earlier book, there are many here: Nessim's ride into the desert with his brother Narouz, the street festival of Sitna Mariam, the Venetian-style masked carnival, and several others. The effective addition of a second narrator (Balthazar) means that not everything is filtered through Darley's sensibility, so other characters develop greater individuality through the cross-lighting. I am not sure that they all become more likeable -- in particular, there is one scene with Clea near the end which strains my previous view of her as a hovering angel -- but it is easier to understand them. There is also more use of direct speech, so that the two older British characters, the writer Pursewarden and Scobie the old sailor, develop distinct (and rather funny) voices.

Add there is still the rich color and cadence of Durrell's descriptive language, a little overdone perhaps, but full of surprising word-choices and sharp observations, especially when capturing sounds: "From the throat of a narrow alley, spilled like a widening circle of fire upon the darkness, burst a long tilting gallery of human beings headed by the leaping acrobats and dwards of Alexandria, and followed at a dancing measure by the long grotesque cavalcade of gonfalons, rising and falling in a tide of mystical light, treading the peristaltic measure of the wild music -- nibbled out everywhere by the tattling flutes and the pang of drums or the long shivering orgasm of tembourines struck by the dervishes in their habits as they moved towards the site of the festival." No longer does this writing overwhelm the narrative it contains, nor does it merely decorate; rather, it articulates and propels the action, as this four-book sequence comes to seem less an outré experiment and more like a true novel of impressive scope.

Like "Justine", written in a hauntingly sensual style, but far more readable. Took me a much shorter time to read it. There are so many memorable passages of beauty and wisdom in both, one could fill a small notebook - on love and the human condition, and the beauty of nature. Durrell certainly had an alert and unusually articulate mind, writing both with poetry and precision. Published in 1957, yet timeless, as all classics are. I think it is supposed to take place before World War II. "Balthazar" has far more excitement than "Justine", moves at a quicker pace. Here we see all the same characters, yet all in a new light; we see farther and grasp what we see with new understanding. We get fresh info about Pursewarden, Nissim, Narouz, Justine, Darley (the narrator), Melissa, Clea, Pombal, Amaril, Leila, Mountolive, and the outrageous comic scenes built around Scobie. Throughout the entire four volumes that comprise "The Alexandria Quartet", Durrell is constantly backfilling, a technique I particularly love, until at the last, all is revealed. That same technique was also used by Sir Charles Percy Snow in his 11 volume series "Strangers and "Brothers", but perhaps to a lesser extant. Durrell is the master here in letting us see only so much, no further, until the last volume. A rave review

I admit that I have not read "Justine", the first novel of Durrell's famous Alexandria Quartet. Perhaps if I had started at the beginning, I might have had a more favorable impression. Yet I do feel that BALTHAZAR can stand alone as a novel, even if a reader were to be better served by reading all four in order. Durrell's writing is fabulous. Lemon-scented, mauve, pearly Alexandria with the white stalks of its minarets, "the town that breaks open at sunset like a rose"; beggars beside the Rolls Royces, the human flotsam of the Mediterranean, the tawdry revels of the Christian carnival---all appear so pleasingly haunting and decrepit. Durrell's novel is full of "wisdom"--perhaps a lifetime's supply of epigrams on every conceivable subject, saved over the years by the author as he thought of them on sleepless nights, or written down as he heard them at the cafes and salons of the Middle East. To paraphrase the author, "reading joins you to a work, then divides you". I plunged headlong into BALTHAZAR, hoping for a good read, but came out worse off. I felt I had been offered a plate of decadence and cynicism, and not wanting to play the chicken, taken several bites. I didn't like the taste. What I felt, most of all, was that I was an outsider; the observer of a clique or in-group. The author/narrator knew, all the characters knew, but I didn't know. The prose was designed to keep me from knowing. I had to guess or intrigue with myself in order to find out where this novel was going and who all these people were. I did not enjoy the experience very much, though I admit that it might be just the ticket for some. I repeatedly asked myself, "Is it worth finding out ? Do you really care ? Or are these just a bunch of people hopelessly sunk in jealousy, perversion, sex and substance abuse, who prize infidelity above all ? Is this what the author considers usual life ? Why should I try to discover who really loved or cared about whom ?" I concluded that it didn't matter to me very much.

The group broke apart through death, anger, jealousy, and fatigue. BALTHAZAR traces the collapse of this in-grown little society within colonial Alexandria, before the tides of nationalism drowned its international, "Levantine" character forever. If you admire style, eliptical narrative, and skillful description laced with epigrams, this could be a five star novel. Not for me.