Oliver Books

Although I did like this book and I was able to continue with the characters I learned to love in the earlier book, Push Not the River, I found myself reminded of way too many years ago in a college lecture.
The history was interesting but far too much detail and not enough story.

I fell in love with the heroine, Anna in Push Not the River, yet in this book, Against a Crimson Sky, she had little more than a walk on part in much of the story. If anything this book concentrated way too much on military minutia and history of Poland and did not balance the original story of Jan & Anna's romance enough.

James Conroyd Martin has created yet another literary treasure with his sequel to PUSH NOT THE RIVER. Once again, his fabulous gift for storytelling has given me deeper insight into the history of Poland and has truly helped me understand how the political events of the day affected so many lives. Well done!

"Against a Crimson Sky" takes a gripping historical look at the final partition of Poland (1795), it's people, and tells the personal story of the Stelnickis. Martin uses a grand, sweeping style reminiscent of epic storytelling to paint a vivid picture of the era. "Against a Crimson Sky" is a book that can easily be visualized on the movie screen.

The story beings in 1794 shortly after the Russians invade Poland before the country's final partition. Zofia Gonska is pulled from a river escaping death. Switching scenes, Countess Anna Berezowska-Grawlinska (minor Polish nobility) makes her way back home to Sochaczew after the Russian invasion of Praga and reunites with her lover, Count Jan Stelnicki. As Poland is finally taken over by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, Anna and Jan get married and start their family.

Zofia, Anna's cousin, had previously tried to keep Anna and Jan apart. Now, she finds herself drawn to the peasant boy who saved her, Jerzy. Zofia though is like a bird that can't stay still and the peasant life isn't for her. She leaves Jerzy and returns to Praga, a town just outside of Warsaw, and gives birth to her daughter, Izabel.

Anna and Zofia make peace, yet Jan finds married life unable to satisfy his restless nature. When Napolean hints that he would return Poland to the Poles, Jan and his friend, Pawel, join the Emperor's legion, leaving Anna to raise their three children, Jan Michel, Tadeusz, and Barbara. Anna, uncomfortable with the local magistrate, Dolinski, leaves Sochaczew and moves in with Zofia at Praga.

As Napoleon marches across Europe, Anna and Zofia, as members of Poland's nobility, help to entertain various European dignitaries, including Russia's Czar, Alexander, and even Napolean himself. Zofia is always in the thick of Polish intrigue while Anna prefers to keep her eyes on her boys who have gone to military school.

After years apart, Jan is reunited with Anna in Sochaczew as their boys join Napolean's march into Russia. This time it's Anna who leaves Jan to work as a nurse in Praga. As Napolean's march into Russia holds the promise of a reunited Poland, will Jan and Anna's marriage withstand another separation? The end of the novel is surprising and satisfying.

The book's historical backdrop is intriguing and the supporting cast is not only dynamic, but strong in it's own right. Zofia, Pawel, Charlotte, and Dolinski have their own interesting stories to share. Anna is a vibrant lead character in her own right and is a steady, grounding force during the turbulent times of the book. Anna's nobility, whatever the situation, always shines through.

The pace is quick and the writing is sharp. The book is a sequel to "Push Not the River," but stands on it's own. For an exciting look at Poland's struggles and the human condition in the face of war, "Against a Crimson Sky," is a book that will keep the reader turning the page.

Against A Crimson Sky came in the mail today and I couldn't wait to begin reading. I ordered it as soon as I finished Push Not the River and I wanted to know what would happen to Anna. These two books were a great way to learn about Polish history and there is nothing dry about them. From the beginning of the saga you fall in love with Anna and worry about her scheming cousin Zofia. So many unfair things happen to Anna and to Poland. Even if you know the history you still hope for a happy ending. If you like historical fiction or romance or books set in foreign countries this will be an unforgettable read!

I just returned from 3 weeks in the UK and think the reviews over sold this book. It was not at all the travel bible I expected. You know the comments about how weak the maps are? Well....... if it isn't on the map, it isn't in the book. This book is an excellent resource if you are looking for ideas on what to do with your time in Britain but if you know what you want to do and expect it to be in this book you will most likely be disappointed.

If you just want to see the standard tour stuff, you are better off looking up the visitor information center location for each major city you're visiting and heading straight for it when you arrive. You can book your city tours and attractions and get the best deals on city sanctioned accomodations from the visitor centers.

I had a car for half the time and used the rails the other half. This book did not have the detail for either modes of travel. I needed a little more detailed maps, local rail stations and how the underground connected with major hubs in the major cities. I did not even see anything on the Heathrow Express into the London Paddington Station. That is elemental info for getting into London from the airport.

This book is not bad, it just was not right for me and was not what I expected. I knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do and there was very little about those things in this book. They really tried to cover too much in a single volumne. They need to break England, Wales and Scotland into individual volumes.

I still recommend this book but don't rely on it to get you where you want to go and copy just the pages you need (including the area maps at the beginning of each section)instead of lugging the whole book all over Britain. I ended up leaving mine in a the hotel because it was just one heavy item too many.

You want a guidebook with a touch of attitude, Lonely Planet books are for you. They may lack some of the warmth and reach of other books, but they also cover things no one else touches. All the big name sites and attractions are here but so are some spots that most tourists never think of. Lonely Planet Great Britain is unique and I'd recommend it to anyone.

This is the third Lonely Planet travel book I've purchased, and as usual, it surpasses every other book. All the information is easy to understand, well organized, and relevant. Don't think it's going to include Ireland though, because it's actually part of the United Kingdom, not Great Britain.

This is an excellent guidebook. The only problem with it is the quality of the city maps, which are almost impossible to read. I saw an earlier edition in which they were in color and much better. They must have tried to save money in this edition by doing them in grayscale.

In planning a trip to Great Britain, I have purchased three travel books: Lonely Planet, Eyewitness and Frommer's. I would rank them in that order as far as helpfulness in planning our trip. Here are my reasons: I have found Lonely Planet's sections on "where to sleep" and "where to eat" are much more extensive, informative and include a wider variety in price ranges than the other two books. Also, they have more information on some of the smaller towns, that are off the beaten track. I enjoyed the wonderful photographs, maps and illustrations in the Eyewitness Guide to Great Britain and if you can afford two books, it is a great way to prepare for what you will see. However, since I only have room for one travel book in my small suitcase, I plan to take the Lonely Planet book with me on our upcoming trip.

Great telling of the Tory side of the American Revolution.

Oliver Wiswell is an excellent historical novel that, along with Rabble in Arms, Arundel, and The Battle of the Cowpens (all by Roberts) provides a comprehensive view of the American Revolution. Reading all 4 books, one learns a tremendous amount of history about some of the battles fought first in the North at Quebec, Lake Champlain, and Saratoga, and then in the South at the Cowpens and the implications it had for the final American victory at Yorktown.

The reader also gets an excellent insight into the viewpoints of the British, Loyalists, and Patriots during the conflict. So, I strongly recommend that all 4 books be read together (indeed, back in 1976 they were issued together as "A Reader on the American Revolution.")

So, why did I add "But..." to my review title?

Because I emphasize that the only way to fully understand Oliver Wiswell is to first read the other novels. In the book, Oliver is the Loyalist son of a well-to-do son of a rich Boston attorney. The society he comes from is the country's aristocracy of the time... rich, well educated, supremely disdainful of the "rabble" that is fighting for the American cause during the war. First read Rabble in Arms to get an understanding of the tremendous suffering and deprivation the Patriots suffered during the Revolution with incredible selflessness. Learn how they fought against all odds for their country, with little or no pay, often times with poor leadership and little food, and no personal gain while facing thousands of professional, well trained and armed soldiers and foreign mercenaries (not to mention Indians that were capable of quite savagely killing and scalping entire families or defenseless women like Jennie McCrae).

Then read Oliver Wiswell; I guarantee you that Oliver's constant disdain for the "scarecrows," the "rabble," the "pseuodo-soldiers" will grate on your nerves the more often he repeats such terms.

Of course rich Loyalists had no time for the idea of American independence; they benefited from the the British way of running the colonies. It were the "rabble" that suffered under the trade and settlement restrictions that the British sought to impose on the colonies for the benefit of their own economy, and to see to it that they and not the Americans controlled the settlement of the West. If men like Hancock were "failed" businesmen and "smugglers," it was due to British control of America's international trade that insisted that America not manufacture its own goods, and purchase only British made goods. If there was ill-clothed, un-shod "rabble" in America, it was because of such policies. Men like Hancock and Sam Adams recognized the eternal poverty many Americans would suffer unless those policies were overturned. They gambled their very lives on the behalf of the "rabble," when they could just as easily have settled comfortably into the upper classes along with Wiswell simply by continuing to smuggle goods. Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence would have been as good as signing his own death warrant if the Revolution had failed. On the other hand, men like Oliver Wiswell refused to see the consequences of the "good government" they believed Britain provided.

The American Revolution was more than just a "civil war," as Oliver keeps calling it... it was indeed a REVOLUTION, of the "rabble" that were so poor they went into battle without shoes and decent clothes and food because they were on the short end of a Colonial social system that benefited the likes of Wiswell. It's not an accident we call it the Revolutionary War.

Another reviewer dismissed Gibson's "The Patriot" and pointed to Oliver Wiswell as proof that it was just anti-British Patriot propaganda. I strongly suggest that readers also peruse "The Battle of the Cowpens" by Roberts. It's a short work, written shortly before Roberts died and meant as the core of a much longer historical novel he never got to finish. However, anyone who reads it will instantly recognize that "The Batle of the Cowpens," along with Robert's other works, is in fact the literary source for "The Patriot." In that book, Roberts aludes to "the almost unbelievable savagery" of BOTH the Patriot and Loyalist sides during the Revolution. In the South, the Loyalists and their Indian allies in fact did slaughter Patriot families unmercifully on the frontiers, and the Patriots responded in kind to put them down. For all the deprivations that Oliver Wiswell mentions, the fact is Oliver was deported to Boston ALIVE. The loyalist Tom Buell is tar and feathered, and literally ridden out on a rail, but he was ALIVE. One can well wish Loyalists at Simsbury Mines were better treated, and deplore the excesses that occured on Long Island... BUT, just a peek at the news out of Iraq each day today and the horrors perpetrated there by terrorists even now will show that Americans 230 years ago behaved in a far morally superior manner than others do even today in many places in the world.

As Steven Nason puts it in Rabble in Arms: If the Revolution was lost, and the Loyalists had not been driven out, it would have been the Loyalists like Wiswell that would have pointed out the Patriots for hanging. Wars and Revolutions are hard things, and it may seem like a hard-hearted thing to say: But, in fact America WAS better off winning its independence, and ridding itself of people like Wiswell that saw the likes of remarkable men like Washington, Jefferson, Hancock, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, and Adams as nothing but socially inferior "rabble."

Think of it this way: in World history there have been a few periods of incredible social and cultural "golden ages" when an amazing collection of great men that usually appear only one at a time per generation or two suddenly come on the scene together and change the course of civilization. The Golden Age of Athens was probably the greatest of such times. The Renaissance, with its Leondardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and others was another. And, in the political sphere, the American Revolution - with the Founding Fathers - was arguably the most recent. And that is the group that Wiswell dismisses as "hypocrites" and "incompetents" and "rabble" worthy of only his disdain.

Oliver Wiswell is a great read, and allows the reader to share in the mindset of the Loyalists. It doesn't sugarcoat history and is frank about Patriot excesses - as Roberts' other books are frank about British and Loyalist excesses. Just be sure to read those other books, to remind yourself why, after all, Oliver and his kind were wrong and The War of American Independence was profoundly right.

Briefly, Kenneth Roberts filled out his treatment of the American Revolution through this novel providing a Loyalist's view of the Revolution. It was fascinating to follow the Revolution from the "other side" of our standard histories. The descriptions of events, people and issues were done nicely and rounded out the heroic viewpoints we usually learn in school. The effect did not detract from the facts or heroics of the rebel's side, but did round it out with balance and perspective. The tale and the romance are a bit tortuous, but this style of writing was to entertain, not read like a 60 minutes TV program action script. As such, this book continues to be a great read 65 years after it was first published. There is an interesting set of observations or subtext by Roberts on the futility of armed conflict, and that war solves nothing. That is interesting in the context of the American 1940s political setting. I am not sure of how Mr. Roberts viewed the possible American involvement in the struggle with Nazi Germany. Perhaps he was an adherent of the isolationist theory that was very popular with a number of prominent Americans in the years just before Pearl Harbor. Again, this novel is a great balance with the Robert's classic American Revolution novels that create the historic records of the American patriots.

I'll be brief. I am puzzled by the reader who downgraded Oliver Wiswell for its sympathetic portrayal of middle-class loyalist Americans in the Revolutionary period. Roberts has written sympathetically about all classes in his opus, and Wiswell states frequently in the book that he is, after all, an American. Is that insufficently PC?
I've read other books by Kenneth Roberts and continue to read history and biography of the Revolutionary period. Judging by that material, Roberts' insight (remember he wrote over 70 years ago) is astonishing.
Although Roberts does not seem to have enjoyed the literary acclaim given Fitzgerald, Faulkner, even Hemingway and the like in contemporary criticism. I believe his works will and should endure.

I just finished this book, and I believe it to be Kenneth Roberts' best book. I have enjoyed all of his storys since I read Arundel years ago. He was a masterful storyteller, and his knowledge of the history and culture of the times is unequaled. I have long felt that his books are timeless and should be required reading in both high school and college. He wrote fiction, but you cannot get a similar feeling for the times and people in any history book. He brought to life the great leaders of this period such as Arnold, Schyler, Roberts, Thompson, and so many others in a way no history book could. All of his books are great reads and worthy of our attention. Oliver Wiswell is unique to Roberts and perhaps to American literature. I had never considered "the other side" of the revolution. We were taught about the great patriots, but loyalists and the likes of Benedict Arnold were always traitors. This book reveals the fallacy of that teaching. It also shows the great tragedy that was the American Revolution. I had never considered it to be another civil war, but that was precisely what it was. The "patriots" were not that different from the "loyalists", and in many cases they were worse. The darkest and most ugly part of that civil war was the division that was borne between people who equally loved their country. There are reflections of all of that in our times as politicians in the name of freedom and democracy seek to divide us. The lessons of history are for all times. Anyway, you MUST read this book.

What is better then a great mystery, intelligent characters and without even trying you get to learn something on top of it?

Gideon Oliver and his wife are a rarity, no demons or craziness, a nice normal couple who love and support each other. Which is the reason why Gideon accompanied his wife, Julia to England. And unlike some other fictional forensic anthropologists, Gideon is able to interact with other people in polite society.

Gideon was not looking for adventure when he comes across another murder when asked to examine some bones in a local museum. Dealing with the local police, his wife's competitors in a research grant, his host's peculiar behavior and the setting itself is worth the read. Dinner in a dungeon? Fantastic.

The minor characters are interesting, quirky but never cartoonish.

And to top it off you learn the difference between a cadaver and bomb sniffing dog and how they`re trained. Believe me it was interesting, not at all boring and it is important to the story. You also get to learn a bit about forensics, all very fascinating.

What I always appreciated about Mr. Elkins stories is that his books are all around 200 pages. But in those 200 pages, you will find very interesting characters, great settings, and a great story.

While this book will be welcomed by Gideon Oliver fans with the same warmth as previous books, the similarities to previous books mount up until it almost feels as if one has read this one before. How many conferences in how many exotic isolated locations have Gideon and Julie attended? And someone winds up murdered and Gideon astounds the local police with his ability to identify the occupation of a stiff/cause of death from a fragment of bone. It's the same trick every time and the reader learns a little something about the bones.

And Gideon is the same guy we liked, thirteen books ago. It's okay for a formula fiction character to never change and this is okay for formula fiction. I read it and it was an okay read, but I'm not excited by the idea of the next book as I was when I first discovered this series when it was only four or five books old.

It is not entirely clear to me why this 13th volume in the Gideon Oliver books bears the title it does, but this is one of the best of Elkins' stories. It is a classic "Skeleton Detective" mystery (do I need to explain that Oliver is a forensic scientist, not some fanatastical animated skeleton?). You don't need to have read any of the earlier books to enjoy this one. The story has clues galore if you know your skeletal anatomy, an involving plot in the purlieus of British police work, and fewer indulgent sightseeing digressions than in recent books. For some reason I find his stories set in Europe to be the better ones. As usual there is a very well hidden clue in the very first chapter, but of course you cannot recognize it until well into the story, by which time you will have forgotten that key little detail. (To be truthful, Oliver had forgotten it, too.)

Typically, Dr. Oliver is on vacation, with his ranger wife Julie, this time at an environmental conference in the Scilly Islands off England. (Oh, there are jokes about the Isles of "Scilly," is the "c" not pronounced?) The suspects, uh, guests, have an interesting diversty of character and opinion--and aren't the women something! As a favor, Oliver checks out a Cromwellian skeleton for a local museum, but is soon so distracted by a sawed off ankle joint found elsewhere that we never learn the context of that Roundhead. Oh, well, that historical mystery is soon supplanted by investigation of this other, disarticulated, and newly deceased person, at the behest of a crusty old copper who has been quasi-cashiered into a do-nothing post. The satisfying plot device is to take us step by step through Oliver's gradual uncovering and reconstructing of a body beginning with that single joint. Very Sherlockian, without the icy arrogance. He performs an "osteo-biography" of the murdered person, arriving at a surprising identification, but that stimulates further crime. One flaw is, how could the coppers interview Julie, but not Oliver, although both were on the "closed" scene of the new crime?

I enjoyed this story, which has lots of forensic detection presented with an expert, and light, touch. There is very little academic preaching to convey the technical details. If you see pictures as you read, then some scenes will be pretty gory; not all Gideon's dead are just bones.... Some readers may be offended by Elkins' skeptical treatment of a type of people-hating environmentalist. What I'd really like to know is how Gideon ever identified (according to an anecdote he relates) a water-rotten corpse as a baseball-playing motorcyclist? Surely Elkins is teasing us (unless he is referencing one of his earliest stories whose victim I've forgotten--not at all Elkins' usual practice). I think I shall read my collection again.

Unnatural Selection takes the Gideon Oliver books back into a much more satisfying realm of forensic mystery than the last few. Rather than spending inordinate time on Gideon's personal life or character intrigue, this book lets us see the process of discovery and science, the elements that first attracted me to Elkins' work.

Bear. Alaska. Scilly Islands. Washington. Bones. No one else tells stories like these. We even get to see the bear's point of view. Good old Gideon teaches us something new again, both in his forensic specialty and in a new area --Elkins does a great job with the search dog. The background story of the disgruntled top cop is intriguing too, an extra mystery.

Dont think twice, if you are starting a cookbook collection or is just searching for inspiration - Jamie's cookboks are for you... bought it for my wife...couldn't stop reading it and trying it out....

Good choice!

Good taste!

Just looking at the pictures (as many of Jamie, it seems, as of the food) and reading the recipes, I tagged 6 as both appealing and do-able. That's not too many from a book of this size. Of course it's all a matter of personal taste, but just for example, an inordinate number of recipes call for mint, which is fine if you're crazy about mint. If not, not. I'd recommend leafing through this at the library or book store before purchasing.

I received this book as a Christmas gift and was excited about getting it home and trying out the recipes. Some of the recipes turned out fabulous but some didn't as the measurements were just plain wrong. I even tried a couple of the recipes twice and even bought new kitchen scales only to have it fail every time. I think people think Jamie's lack of precise measurements are part of his charm and even liberating but unfortunately cooking doesn't always allow this much room for error. So Jamie, while you have the priveledge of being careless with your measurements and able to try recipes until you master them the rest of us poor saps that bought your book have to keep ruining dinner. I guess you can figure out that you should not reach for this book if you want to try something new for those dinner guests coming over.

I love Jamie's books! I love all the pictures, the great simple recipes, and insight into Jamie's world.

This book was written during the time when he started training young unemployed kids to become chefs. The chapters include some great unusual salads, cooking without heat, poaching, cooking in pouches, stewing, frying, roasting, grilling, and baking.

There is only one recipe per page, and include a beautiful picture of the prepared product. In between the recipes there are tons of pictures of Jamie, for all the fans out there.:)

These books are definitely a writing from the heart.

I now have all of Jamie Oliver's books and DVDs. I am eagerly awaiting his book on Italy to be released. B. Marold says it best, so anything I say will be redundant. What I like (love really) about his cookbooks, including this one, is that all of the recipes are cook-able. The meat, fish, salad, and dessert recipes are simple, but incredibly tasty. I own numerous cookbooks, but few are as easy to manouver as Jame Oliver's. The photographs are wonderful and he is adorable. Perhaps he makes it look too easy, but it is once you read the recipe and get down to business in your kitchen. I love this cookbook. It has everything you need to cook and serve a delicious and healthy meal. I would also recommend both his DVDs. His energy is infectious. If you love London (and England) as I do, you get colorful glimpses of restaurants and markets in each episode. His friends are deightful. Especially Gennaro his Italian 'father' and mentor.

I wish I had recorded all of his earlier programs (The Naked Chef) when they were on the Food Network. These tapes are not available now. He deserves all of the success he has garnered for himself. Go out and buy this book and all his other books. And don't forget the DVDs.

I must admit that I have not been the biggest fan of Mark Rothko, but after reading this book and seeing the quality plates, I am very much a fan of Rothko. Now, when I go to museums, I am very interested in seeing his work and studying his color, edges, paint handling and spirit. This book is worth owning.

I saw the original show that went with this book. While the book cannot do justice to the works one can still appreciate the greatness of Rothko by reading/viewing it.

I recently bought this book, and I want to comment on the discussion regarding the color - the color is NOT great, and it does NOT show Rothko's work in its best light. Anyone who says differently should get their eyes checked. That being said, other than that it seems to be a very nice book, and I'll still be glad to have it in my library. I just need another book for better color reference.

It was nice to see the transition that Rothko made throughout the years from complex modern art (ala Picasso and Dali) to more simplistic yet rich in colors.

This is the catalogue for a beautiful exhibition that was held at the Beyeler Foundation. Many of the works reproduced are hidden in private collections (e.g. a huge 1958 canvas in black, white and red) and it is great to be able to admire them. Nothing replaces the live experience of being engulfed in a Rothko, standing a short distance from the canvas itself, but this book is undoubtedly a valuable addition in any art library.

I'm a big Disney fan. Having read "the animated man" all about Walt's life, I wanted to learn more about his right hand man. While Walt came up with great ideas, Roy (his older brother) ran the company and found the money to keep Walt going. This is a very interesting look at the man who occupied the second chair of one America's most influential companies. Great book.

I had the good fortune to have Walt Disney World as my first employer while Roy O. Disney was alive. He actually came to one of my job locations while I was working. Alas I was working in the back and missed meeting him.

Prior to the theme park's opening fulltime employees were schooled at "Walt Disney World University" twenty to thirty hours a week. There were massive layers of learning. One lesson taught loud and clear was thousands of artists have come and gone unknown. The reason you know about Walt Disney is he had a brother who was a business genius named Roy. Roy made Walt Disney `happen'.

Before Chapter One is a page with a few colorful paragraphs. This fun quote is a part of that page giving readers a flavor to this book.

"When Walt and I were on the farm in Marceline, we had to sleep in the same bed. Now Walt was just a little guy, and he was always wetting the bed. And he's been peeing on me ever since."

Roy sometimes added with the lighthearted observation: "I can say I'm the only man in the world who has been peed on by a genius."

I enjoyed this book so much I had my high school age son read it. I am a fan of biographies and business. This is one of the top ten books I have read year to date. Today, December 20th is also the date Roy Disney entered eternity. This book gave me a clearer understanding of the Disney Organization that touched my life. I am so grateful it was written giving me a picture of Roy's sacrifices for building the Disney legacy of family fun to our world. His epitaph rings so true:

Roy Disney
A great and humble man who left this world a better place

Finally someone who wrote about equally important, 2nd pilar of The Walt Disney Company. Its cofounder is greatly described in this book. It has many comparisons with his more famous brother Walt, but Roy's business affairs genious was equally important for the company, as Walt's creative genious. This book is a must read!!

Bob Thomas presents a fascinating history of the Disney entertainment empire, with a special focus on Roy Disney's role in the company's growth. While Walt Disney was the creative genius (although he never drew a single picture of Mickey Mouse), Roy Disney provided the solid financial foundation, got the loans and made the deals that made Disney profitable. Thomas mixes the Disney brothers' personal history with an overview of the Disney Company's creative and financial expansion, as they balanced creativity with practical business fundamentals. This personal and corporate saga illustrates the value of a company's commitment to both a central driving purpose and core values. We [...] recommend this lively, engaging, entertaining read. Just one note: The Book's publisher, like so many other entities in the entertainment world, is a Disney subsidiary.

What an interesting read! I had never heard of 'Roy O Disney', and perhaps that's the way he wanted it. Great insight into the man behind the man at one of the most well-known and well-loved companies in the world.

This book will help you understand the difference between visionary leadership and organizational leadership. One without the other is all but irrelevant! Plus some interesting theories on money and risk-taking. Current self-absorbed (and overpaid) CEO's should read this book and take notes. Any comments Mr. Eisner?

I really enjoy Jamie Oliver. He is more down-to-earth than many of the other food network chefs and I just love the food he prepares. This is a wonderful book! buy it!

This is absolutely the best cookbook I have ever owned. Usually I own a cookbook and prepare maybe one or two recipes before it sits of the shelf and begins to collect dust.

Happy Days is chock full of simple, low fuss recipes that taste as though hours of work have been spent in the kitchen. Simple, accessible ingredients and winning combinations. A recipe has yet to disappoint me. For someone who's life is too busy for long hours in the kitchen and want flavorful recipes with flair and originality - this is the book for you!

I don't know why the recipes in this book don't turn out right. Every recipe I tried has been a disaster, not to mention required an extremely expensive list of ingredients (porcini mushrooms and arugula anyone?). Jamie Oliver puts on a great show, but the food just doesn't seem to live up to the "easy peasy" hype. His "My favorite curry" with "Lemon rice" took almost 3 hours from prep to finish and tasted horrible. I won't be buying another Jamie Oliver book.

In every way imaginable, this third Jamie Oliver cookbook proclaims that he has arrived as a celebrity chef, husband, father, and all around swell lad made good. His name on the cover is about three times the size of the book's title, `Happy Days with the Naked Chef', the book is dedicated to his two children, Little Henners and Jakey Bakey, and photos his nibs with his wife, Jools appear throughout the book. On top of all this, there is a much broader representation of international flavors in these recipes based on trips to the Orient, echoing the influence of Japan on the culinary thinking of Joel Robuchon.

At the risk of laying it on just a little too thick, I really believe Oliver shows the kind of passion about good food and cooking which I have seen in very few other TV culinary personalities. Stopping short of a comparison with Julia Child, as Saint Julia did say she couldn't quite understand him most of the time, I would compare his enthusiasm with that of Mario Batali and Jacques Pepin, although he does not have the depth of technique of Jaques or the extensive knowledge of local Italian cuisines as Mario.

Oliver does not simply dedicate to his children for schmaltz value as he devotes a sizable section of the book on the value and attitudes to use when cooking with your kids. These few pages alone are worth the price of the book. Emeril just published a whole book on techniques for cooking with your kids, and as good a job as he did in telling you how to do it, Jamie does a much better job of telling you why you do it and what benefits will arise from the effort. Jamie also gives a few insights into his cooking with Jools as well when he says that once upon a time, every little suggestion on Jools' cooking from world famous chef Jamie was taken as a criticism and tended to dampen her enthusiasm for doing something she did not especially enjoy anyway. The whole picture changed when Jamie simply praised everything Jools did in the kitchen. The quality of her cooking and her attitude improved dramatically. I can think of a few of my relatives I would love to feed the wisdom in this book.

In reviews of Oliver's other books, I have warned that while Jamie preaches simplicity, this is not the same as quick or easy. Jamie does lean a bit toward quicker and easier in some chapters in this book, keeping to the cooking with the kids theme. He has a chapter on `Quick Fixes' and `Comfort Grub' plus `More Simple Salads'. And, he leaves out any recipes for homemade pasta, with all pasta dishes being based on dried pasta, which he always says is not inferior to fresh, just different. There is also a very short chapter just after the introduction on using fresh herbs, which for the entire world sounds like a sermon from Pastor Oliver exhorting you to use fresh herbs. This homily is understandable if you recall that Jamie Oliver's writing and televising about food is all about lifestyle, not just how to cook. His lesson is that fresh herbs are necessary to good cooking.

As always, Oliver's most appealing recipes are for salads, pasta dishes, and seafood. I sometimes wish that all of his books would be reissued collecting all like chapters into individual volumes and I would buy the salad and pasta volumes simply to have all these recipes together. They are by far the most original of his dishes, although there is one pasta dish Jamie attributes to Mario Batali and there are a few in his books that are attributed to his experiences at the River Café.

Bread is one of my favorite culinary subjects and Jamie is one of the very few superstar chefs who gives special emphasis to bread baking. His basic bread recipe is a classic fast method he probably got from Gennaro, as Contaldo uses a very similar recipe in his book `Passione'. The recipe violates the recommendation from experts like Peter Reinhart who promote little yeast and long rise times, but I have made Jamie's bread and I find it just fine, especially as a medium for rolling in savory additions such as onions and salami. To atone for his fast yeast bread, Jamie adds a recipe for artisinal sourdough bread with natural yeast and a classic Italian bega. Read this recipe very carefully before starting, as it takes a FULL WEEK to complete. If you are serious about bread, check out books by Reinhart, Joe Ortiz, or Nancy Silverton, but you could do a lot worse than getting your first taste of bread baking from Sir Jamie.

When someone has an engaging TV personality, I fear their enthusiasm may not transfer to a skill with the written word, especially with Jamie, as I have heard him say he dictates all his books into a tape recorder, as he never really learned to write properly in school. Let me assure you here that even his chapters with low culinary interest such as his chapters on mixed drinks are a joy to read.

Jamie has a habit of labeling certain recipes as `the best ever'. Well, I have made his `best ever' recipes and I agree with him. They have all become standards in my repertoire. He continues to match or exceed the very high quality of recipes you will find from the River Café or even from Signoir Batali himself.

On the remote chance that Hyperion editors read this review for constructive criticism, I will point out that the layout of ingredient lists makes reading the recipes a bit annoying, as does the absence of ingredient lists from some of the simpler recipes.

If one wishes to get more out of their cooking, they could not do much better than to work their way through Jamie Oliver's cookbooks.

The first few times I made things from this book, they seemed off. But Jamie is such the grab and go and not really measuring cook. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then I tried one of his bread recipes... the Banana and Honey Bread (p.245) and using the basic bread recipe (p. 236). Starting with the banana recipe, he says to puree 6 bananas and add water to equal two cups. 6 bananas pureed came out to way more than two cups... then I didnt know what to do about the water. In the basic bread recipe, there it calls for 2 TABLESPOONS of level salt and 2 TABLESPOONS of level sugar. The sugar I could understand, but I had to read the salt one over and over again. I dont even use 2TBS of salt for a roasted chicken and I like salty foods. Then the banana recipe did not call for the removal of the salt from the original recipe. Needless to say, the bread did not turn out well was quite salty, among other things. In retrospect, I think this book has suffered from the conversion from the British system of metrics to the American measurements. I was really disappointed in how much energy and time and enjoyment I had poured into this book and Jamie Oliver, when someone did not care enough to proof the book and ensure that recipes were accurate and usable. I was so disappointed that despite the small fortune I used to collect the books, I decided to give them away with the belief that you should use the book for inspiration, and for recipes that do not call for exact measurements, otherwise, this is not really a cookbook but a selling of a celebrity or personality. I was truly disappointed.

Brown presents a psychoanalytic theory of culture and history. The essence of this theory is contained within the following passage: "Culture exists in order to project the infantile fantasies into external reality, where they may be seen and mastered." Brown suggests that we are the source of society, culture and history. His perspective differs from theories of the reigning scholars, who propose that culture "descends" upon people from above (mind is shaped by discourse or the symbolic order).

Brown proposes a more difficult (and profound) way of understanding society, suggesting that cultural forms are created and perpetuated to the extent that they fulfill specific human needs and desires. A psychoanalytic theory of culture would require articulating why human beings bring into being certain ideologies and institutions--and why they are perpetuated.

My own research and writing builds upon Brown's theories in books such as "Hitler's Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology," "The Psychoanalysis of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism," and "Symbiosis and Separation: Towards a Psychology of Culture."

Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D.

Brown martials an impressive array of scholarship in this exploration of psychoanalytic concepts applied broadly to human history and culture. He bounces Freud off many great works of philosophy, poetry, and theology, and makes some impressive sparks fly.

Unfortunately, the book is based on the absurd premise of the "death instinct", a concept Freud posed late in his career when his broad cultural speculations removed him from the concrete realities of therapy. With the instinctual dualism of this sex-death theory, Freud replaced the earlier, more sensible instinctual dualism he had once posed between sex and hunger. The sex-hunger, (or sex-reality, or species survival-individual survival) split that Freud's early work is based on is to my mind the one that makes sense, rooted as it is in concrete biology, and should never have been abandoned.

Brown's writing is crippled by its foundation on the "death instinct", which posits all repression as self-repression, thus letting society off the hook for the human misery its strictures cause.

In his final chapter, Brown purports to offer "The Way Out" of our societal morass, but the inherently misanthropic, conservative prejudices of 'death instinct' theory leave him capable of only the vaguest platitudes in this direction. Those interested in a real psychological theory of life against death would do well to check out the therapeutic and social writing of Paul Goodman, who wisely dismisses the 'death instinct' and makes some vital practical suggestions for altering our lifeways, at all levels, to allow Eros freer reign.

De-sublimation is what Brown prescribes to his readers. The book is well researched and well written. Much of the book twists your mind.

You need a good background in psychology, religion, poetry and philosophy as well as a quick mind to be able to grasp many of the abstract concepts.

Read it.

An awesome book on the psychoanalytical meaning of history. I read that this book was admired by Jim Morrison in his bio by fellow band member Ray Manzarek. Books to read come in strange ways. I also read about this book referenced by the integral psychologist and philosopher Ken Wilber.

This books gives credibility to Freudian Analysis. Nor that it was ever lost, but there are neo-Freudians which of course differ from Freud and there is the reductionism when one looks only through one paradigm, regardless of it's accuracy. This is because there are other modes or of insight that co-inside and yet contradict some of Freud, but that's the beauty of it all, of the psychoanalytical analysis paradigm. And this paradigm is one of the subjective mind, unless you consider Freud to also be biological, then it would take in objectivity, but only in certain levels and degrees. And so this book I think expounds profoundly and is a deep book.

OK, this book speaks of Freud's "pleasure principle," "reality principle," Oedipus complex," "death instinct," castration anxiety," and while this outwardly may sound very limited, the issue comes down to one thing, repression. And whether its sexual, excremental, power or various levels of blocked emotional energies, the theories employed as to why and are very valuable in understanding ourselves and others. And this repression is based on sublimated infantile erotic pleasures beyond into a reality principle and in many cases death instinct. There are many fascinating chapters/essays on these ideas. The fact of the matter is we all came from the womb, all had consciousness of embryonic narcissistic selfhood and sought pleasure and had to deal with reality. We all had a mother (not including abandonment) who became our entire world, our need for pleasure verses pain and desire to possess and it was of a erotic nature. And we all had to deal with separation aspects as major threats to our consciousness.. So much of psychoanalysis rings of truth.

Interesting how the death instinct is the desire to get back to the womb, the incapacity to accept the individuality of life. So it's this form of romanticism, to get back to the child, to play. Unfortunately it negates life in that it fails to accept and represses and causes a life view, either socially, politically, individually & etc. to live a live of undue restraint or hardships with the idea that this life is all temporary, working towards dying in this life to be rewarded with the return back to the womb. And so this is a death against life, a life where the irrational Dionysian play is destroyed and we live in a purely empirical scientific age of logic and rationalistic work, where living is logic in work, as opposed to the idea of play, of childlike ability to live in the present moment, without historicity and guilt and instead the moment where all action is spontaneous play. But instead we repress our play, create history from guilt and rationalize a materialist way of living. The archaic man sublimated his guilt in group activity and had this marvelous trait of each year erasing his historicity in sharing, but even then it was a form of sublimation of guilt. Modern man just builds on his history and lives a capitalistic life based on valueless commodity. Value is measurement, quantity, no longer quality and art. Money has become our excrement. The archaic man transferred or sublimated his sexual and infantile narcissistic energies into a community or shared social system. The modern man sublimates his into money and things he puts value into.

History seen through the eyes of psychoanalysis can be viewed as the sublimation of repression. In this, the infant first exists according the pleasure principle in where is bodily functions take first priority. The reality principle of course combats this and the young child develops the Oedipus complex, wishing to completely own his mother, jealous, wishing to eliminate his father or become the father to himself.

In sublimation, there is the repression of bodily and sexual instinctive desires into what we know of as culture. And the higher the culture the greater the sublimation. What has culminated is our era of objective materialism and empirical science which represses the non-rational nature of wish fulfillment's, desires and instinctual drives. Brown proposes that we reestablish our Dionysian roots, the creative, non repressive self where the use of a money and culture are not the means of escaping the pleasure principle. Instead we play, erase historicity, loose the guilt and accept our entire bodies, not just our minds.

The essay on Jonathan Swift, his exposure of what appears to be prideful human intellectuals and cultural values to come from the anus and excrement (the as***le and sh*t). And he both Norman O. Brown and Jonathan Swift link as all ideas as coming from the human body, ideas used to empower persons, elevate and leave teachings that far outlive the human being's body, another wards a way to be immortal, as an act of repression of the anxiety of death, of separateness. The idea of becoming one's own father - immortality, the Oedipus complex. There is much to this. And yet in a sense, all "matter" comes from excrement, which is what all we are made from biologically, the very biological make up that brings forth our minds and intellectual ideas.

Much, much more to this book, not said here.

This is a highly provocative work of psychoanalysis scholarship, especially for those of us with only a passing knowledge of Freud's work. Brown interprets and modernizes such seminal Freudian hypotheses as the castration complex and penis envy, love and religion as neuroses, the connection between feces and money, and the body's impediments to happiness. It is in this final arena that the book goes a bit over the top (though rooting Protestantism in Luther's bowels leaves "the top" in the dust as well), with Brown abandoning a more careful analysis of Freud in favor of a highly esoteric plea for the return of the body to its primal, unoppressed state. This is perhaps the most innovative section of the book, but it also undoes some of the work Brown did in earlier chapters to place the problem in the unconscious, accessible only via psychoanalysis (the occasional blatant evangelism is another drawback of the book for me).

A fascinating read that, though flawed, will level a swift kick to most readers' views of personhood.

"Combat, Volume 3" is edited with an introduction by Stephen Coonts. This book collects four short novels in the genre of military fiction. The first piece is "Cyberknights," by Harold Coyle. This tale looks into the work of a unit of U.S. Army computer specialists who wage war on the electronic frontier. Although the Internet is their vehicle, their warfare has real world consequences. Coyle creates an intriguing portrait of a unique military unit with its own jargon, protocols, and evolving culture; he raises potent issues of leadership and ethics in an Army facing profound technological and cultural change.

The second short novel is "There Is No War in Melnica," by Ralph Peters. This tale follows the mission of a two-person U.S. Army team investigating wartime atrocities in the Balkans. In straightforward but powerful prose, Peters creates a graphically violent and bloody tale. It is a devastating look at how war and ethnic hatred warp and degrade human beings. Through his characters Peters raises the incisive question: How should the Unted States respond to global acts of genocide? It's a gripping, suspenseful, and even heartbreaking story.

Third in the collection is "Cav," by James Cobb. This tale, set in the year 2021, follows the exploits of an Army unit in combat with hostile Algerian forces in Africa. The story goes into detail about the unit's high-tech weaponry and vehicles, and also explores the personalities of the team. The unit includes both men and women, and is diverse along both ethnic and religious lines.

The fourth and final short novel is "Flight of _Endeavor_," by R.J. Pineiro. When the International Space Station is seized by a mutinous crew member with a deadly agenda, the space shuttle _Endeavor_ is sent with an emergency response team that has orders to retake the station. The story's protagonist is a female former Marine aviator who now serves as an astronaut and shuttle commander. This is an action packed, high-tech thriller that offers an interesting look at a woman in command. Overall, "Combat 3" is a very entertaining and thought-provoking gathering of tales; it's an outstanding addition to the military fiction genre.

I picked this book up from an airport bookstall to while away a transatlantic flight, and came very close indeed to binning it after a dozen pages. What a shame that the editor should have put Harold Coyle's "Cyberknights" first of the four short stories in this collection. The other three are fine, but Coyle - although I hate to say it - has lost his bearings. "Cyberknights" has a promising theme: a special team of computer hackers is recruited by the US Army to defend against hostile hackers from other countries. Working closely with real soldiers and agencies like the NSA, these "Cyberknights" (yes, the pompous title is capitalised every time) also strike back against the countries they *think* are encouraging hostile activities. In the story, they respond to a hack that nearly splashes a flight of F16 fighter jets into the ocean by changing their flight orders "in the computer". (What computer this is, and why the USAF would be stupid enough to link it to the Internet, is not explained). The Cyberknights' response? They engineer the destruction of a chemical plant in the supposed aggressor country.

Apart from being ethically dubious to say the least, the Cyberknights are ludicrous to anyone who knows the first thing about computer security. When counterattacking a hacker's PC, they see fit to upload a huge coloured picture of a charging knight - just to give warning of their intentions. It is clear that Coyle knows little about computers and the Internet, and he has made the mistake of assuming his readers know even less.

"There is no war in Melnica" by Ralph Peters could not be more different. Instead of florid, pretentious fantasies supported by inadequate research, this is a simple, poignant vignette of the NATO intervention in the Balkans and its aftermath. Right from its opening words - "The workman tossed him a skull" - Peters grabs your attention and doesn't let go. With admirable economy of words, he shows you the senselessness of war, the impossibility of identifying the "good" (our allies) from the "bad" (our enemies), and the unbridgeable gulf between those who have been there and the distant politicians and brass who set events in motion without any idea of the consequences - even in retrospect.

James Cobb's "Cav" is a tightly-written, exciting example of a genre in which Coyle ("Team Yankee", "Bright Star") and Peters ("Red Army" and "The War in 2020") have excelled. In 2021 the Islamic Republic of Algeria launches a Blitzkrieg invasion of its southern neighbour Mali, one of the poorest nations on earth. While heavy US and French forces are on the way, a small US Army detachment is sent to head off the Algerian armoured column, if possible, at the only pass through the strategic El Khnachich range of hills. It is a perfect scenario: the superior American equipment (with the advantage of surprise) is pitted against overwhelming force.

R J Pineiro's "Flight of Endeavour" is the longest of the four stories, at 130 pages - but there is no danger of getting bored. What if the International Space Station housed, at the request of the UN, an array of 15 kiloton yield non-nuclear missiles for "anti-terrorist" purposes - and a terrorist happened to seize control of them? A female astronaut and a heavily armed team of Marines go up in a modified Space Shuttle to reclaim the weapons. Unfortunately, the space station is also equipped with a powerful chemical laser... It's a thrilling, thought-provoking situation, none the worse for having been anticipated by 50 years in Robert Heinlein's classic short story "The Long Watch" (1949).

Apart from "CyberKnights", this book is well written, exciting, and ideal for the purpose I had in mind - distraction during a long flight. It also gave me some great ideas, and Peters' story explained more about the Balkans to me than ten years of news reports. Recommended - if you don't like the Coyle story, just skip it and read the rest.

These are all good novellas, but I found that the Larry Bond story (Lash-up) dragged at times (and the giant 'rifle' should have been explained better for those unfamiliar with the concept) and the Dale Brown book was more than a bit preachy, but the combat sequences were top-notch. The third novella (Breaking Point) by David Hagberg was, in my opinion, the best of the three. I've never read Hagberg before but I will keep him on my list of authors to watch for.

Combat #3 offered up four good stories by four good authors.
The first story was written by Harold Coyle.He told of a special Army unit made up of cyber warriors. They are recruited to combat the growing attacks by hackers whocause online terrorism around the world. The next story is by Ralph Peters. His story takes place in the Balkan states. A U.S. Army observer is taken hostage by the people he is sent over to observe.James Cobb tells of a U.S. calvary unit that does combat with an Algerian recon division that is attempting to attack a helpless African country.R.J. Pineiro,one of the rising stars among today's authors tells of a Russian terrorist seizes a space station
equipped with nuclear warheads.It is up to Marine Diane Williams to stop him.Four good stories for the price of one. Read this. You will enjoy it.

Few books live up to the hyperbole of their backcovers. The first installment of the Combat series edited by Stephen Coontz is no exception, "Groundbreaking Landmark" sounded suspicious...and the first story in the first volume, by Larry Bond, confirmed my suspicions. A huge fan of Bond's first novel, Red Phoenix, I've never been very satisfied with his subsequent material. This is probably the worst I've seen from him. A plot that's hardly engaging, card-board characters (with cheesy dialogue) that aren't the least bit interesting, and some of the poorest editing I've ever seen combine to make his installment a chore. At one point he refers Vietnamese flashpoints between the U.S. and China (that have no bearing on the story's plot) but offers no set up for them. We're just supposed to assume that the U.S. and China had been at odds over Vietnam for a long time...it made no sense. Bond's contribution was just dull dull dull.

Then we get to Dale Brown's installment, "Leadership Material". This one succeeds in many places where Bond's installment failed. Its characters are instantly likable. And, while the combat passages are brief, they are harrowing. I found the shennanigans that surround Air Force promotions boards (the primary plot devise herein) to be extremely entertaining - I doubt many others will, though - I'm going up against a board soon myself, it was nice to have an inside scoop.

The back cover of the book suggests it portrays war the way it is or soon will be. Brown's novel takes place back in the early 1990's...another strike against the jacket hype. Great story, though.

The story that will have the broadest appeal (its an absorbing read!) is the entry from the always-reliable David Hagberg. Hagberg (who recently wrote the novelization of the Terminator 3 film) has made a name for himself over recent years penning submarine thrillers. The brief installment in this series is part submarine plot and part espionage thriller. It may not be the most accurate but it is by far the most entertaining of the lot.

Brown's and Hagberg's work here are worth 4 or 5 stars. Bond's installment and the ludicrous hyperbole on the cover knock it down to three. I'd recommend it.