New Zealand Books

Understanding Wall Stret (most recent paperback edition) is an excellent book. Shipment arrived in time as promised and in perfect condition. I am completely satisfied with how this order was handled.

I had hoped this would be a clearly written and interesting explanation of the general workings of the stock market for someone who has never really understood it. But it goes into far too much detail, defining every little term and process. Maybe it's just a subject that cannot be made interesting or relatively simple, but in any case, this book does not accomplish those things.

In the late 80's, as a neophyte investor, I picked up more than I imagined I would from Understanding Wall Street.

In the late 90's, as an industry professional, I frequently turned through the pages of my tattered old 3rd edition for a great review from time to time.

Today, as an adjunct professor, I am still amazed at the book's scope and ease of understanding. And, I find myself recommending Understanding Wall Street before, during, and after it's apparent that 50lb text books don't always carry their weight.

If you have the slightest desire to learn about the world of investing, Understanding Wall Street just may be your best initial investment.

The first time I read this book was 20 years ago and was impressed with its thoroughness and ease in understanding. I teach at a junior college and offered the students an opportunity to learn a little more about investing that was not covered in their text. This book was complete enough to cover most of the topics and condensed enough for them to read considering their limited free time.

Jeffrey Little and Lucien Rhodes' treatise "Understanding Wall Street" is a very valuable guide for the neophyte desiring the critical knowledge of how the financial nerve center of North America operates.

Rich with historical insight, this guide details the origins and subsequent transformation of some of the world's most prominent stock exchanges located on the street synonymous with wealth and power: Wall Street.

To that end the guide is easily readable and understandable. Complete with examples, explanations, and a comprehensive glossary I found the guide to complete and fill a hole in the much needed understanding of the financial facet of comparative government and civic theory studies.

I rate the text at five stars for providing a lot of information at only 300 pages. This review refers to the 2004 Fourth Edition.

new zealand is a beautiful place

The Guide is very informative, but there is a new edition that has come out in October, so wait to buy the new one!!

This book is a lot better than the other Lonely Planet books in that it is the same size as the others but as it is only about one small country, it can fit most (not all there's still work to be done) of the towns and attractions backpackers want to see in New Zealand.

The main difference between this and Let's Go is that this is written for a North American audience whereas Let's Go is more for your British, European, Australian, South African and the like markets. This means those not from North America may find a lot of the information as common knowledge, especially historic things and would prefer to have more further detailed information which is contained in the competitor Let's Go. Since the American education system doesn't teach this stuff American audiences will find it fascinating and will have a need for it maybe.

A fair amount of the hostels in New Zealand actually do appear in this book which is very surprising for a Lonely Planet as they usually miss about 75 per cent of them. Be aware that there are other hostels out there though, so don't completely rely on the book and use the best method word of mouth from other backpackers as well. Of course the price information is out of date as usual.

If only Lonely Planet could achieve as good a book for their other country/continent versions then they might be a worthwhile purchase. I'd say buy this if you're a North American but get Let's Go if you're not. Well actually I'd say don't bother with either as you're just reliving someone else's experiences and it's better to explore for yourself but for hostel listings and background info if you don't know much about New Zealand then this is useful.

If you're going to New Zealand - and want to enjoy the country to the fullest - DO NOT LEAVE WITHOUT THIS GUIDE! I embarked on a 6-week long trip last June with this edition of 'Lonely Planet New Zealand' and fate as my only guides. I was impressed to the max! The only other guide I needed was a road atlas I picked up at the airport in Auckland (and since I was touring some of the Lord of the Rings film locations, Ian Brodie's lovely 'Lord of the Rings: Location Guidebook'). I do recommend renting a vehicle - as someone under 25 years old, Budget was a good bet for rental. Just remember, "Left, left left." It's a cinch! With the US dollar exchange rate favorable, we cheaply rented a top notch 4WD SUV for the entire time based on the recommendation of this book. I love the Lonely Planet series for the sheer fact that it gives you pointers on fantastic locations that may be slightly off the beaten path while at the same time informing you of the best of the best in those tourist meccas. It's a lovely balance. My only regret is that 6-weeks is far too short a time to see everything there is to see in New Zealand!

The top 5 places you shouldn't miss on the North and South Islands:

North Island
1) Take the short ferry ride from Auckland to Rangitoto Island and hike to the summit - otherwordly!
2) Do a touristy bus tour to Cape Reinga out of Paihia - on the bus to Cape Reinga you'll get to: learn a lot about the Maori culture, hug a Kauri tree, stop and surf down sand dunes, wonder in awe at the northern most point of the North Island where untouched white beaches are visible as the Tasman and Pacific Ocean meet and clash (an amazing scene), and to top it all off you'll cruise down 90-mile beach as waves lap the wheels of the bus (yeah, the beach is actually a registered roadway).
3) Drive around the gorgeous Coromandel Peninsula - leave the Thames area just before sunrise and the landscape will just take your breath away! You will come to understand the meaning of Aotearoa/New Zealand: land of the long white cloud.
4) Wander the volcantic parks of Rotorua - Wai-ti-pau was a highlight! Don't forget to sign-up for a traditional Maori concert and haka at the Tamaki Maori Village for a cool cultural experience!
5) Cruise Cuba Street in Wellington for food and shops, and don't forget to visit Te Papa - the national museum of Wellington.

South Island
1) Plan a kayaking trip out of Motueka: the Tonga Island wildlife option is cool - we saw wild Orca and New Zealand Fur Seals up close and personal and then lunched on a secluded beach reached only by kayak!
2) Take a helicopter ride up to Fox Glacier and do an afternoon hike - see where semi-tropical rainforest meets glacier meets the Tasman Sea.
3) Go white water rafting on the Shotover River in Queenstown (be sure you get an option with the Oxenbridge Tunnel)! Then go jet boating, then bungy jumping, you name, it they do it there! Don't miss Deer Park Heights either - say hello to the free roaming buffalo for me!
4) Head to the beautiful city of Kaikoura for whale watching and a dolphin swim.
5) If you love wildlife - head to Dunedin and take a tour out to the Otago Peninsula (you'll see albatross, fur seals, sea lions, yellow-eyed penguins and a variety of bird life up close and personal - by up close I mean walking on the beach less than 10 feet away from a Hooker Seal Lion twice your size). While in Dunedin, visit Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, and don't miss the Cadbury Factory! It's well worth the admission price!

There is so much more to see and do that I haven't listed - and this guide helped me find it all and point me in the right direction every step of the way. The only thing the guide failed to mention was the abundance of rainbows in this enchanted country - I don't know about you, but where I come from rainbows are a special once in a great while occurance. In New Zealand you see them on a daily basis. I guarantee that with the help of this guide you will leave New Zealand with enough fantastic memories to last a lifetime. Kia ora.

I looked at and compared this to all the other guides from Frommer's, Eyewitness, Footprint, Rough, Insight, Moon, and Fodor's, and I thought this one was the best.

I used this guide on an intensive, 3-week trip to New Zealand several years ago in which I drove over 6000 kilometers and got to just about every part of the country except Ninety-Mile Beach on the tip of the north island. I visited spots ranging from Stewart Island, Doubtful and Milford Sound, and Queenstown in the south, to the Coromandel Peninsula in the east, to the Franz-Josef glacier and the small western town of Greymouth in the west, to Lake Taupo and the capital city Auckland in the north. I crossed the southern Alps several times, and got to just about every major city and town, and I found the book very useful and accurate and a very valuable resource on my trip.

New Zealand is one of the most beautiful and delightful places you can visit, and there is something here for everybody. There is still quite a lot of wildlife, and in the south I saw lots of Tui birds, who are like myna birds in that they can immitate just about any noise, and shellducks, which are larger than any American ducks I've seen. One of them even raced me in my car on a road crossing the Alps for a while, until he surprised me by flying under my car and losing all his feathers. Oh well, I hope he grew back those feathers.

If you're into wildlife, another fun activity is to see the little blue penguins and the yellow-eyed penguins in the southeast coastal town of Oamaru. But watch out for those big shellducks. The big Kea parrots in the southern mountains are surprisingly bold. They come right up to you and you can get great pictures. A famous kea was the one that lived in a park in Sydney, Australia. This might be the only world-famous bird I've ever heard of. He would let the air out of automobile tires while people watched and laughed, which he seemed to do for the fun of it. As the New Zealanders say, they're cheeky little buggers.

Another thing not to miss is the New Zealand Wildlife Refuge on the main road north of Wellington on the way to Auckland. Several of the other things that I enjoyed that I learned about first from the book were (on the south island) the Te Anau glow- worm caves, the big boat tour of Doubtful Sound, the boat tour of Milford Sound (the wettest place on earth at sea level, with 25 feet of rain per year), and (on the north island) the Maori cultural town of Rotorua, which smells like rotten eggs everywhere because of all the volcanic steam vents containing sulfur dioxide. In fact, the steam comes out of the ground just about all over the city.

If you're the adventurous type, don't miss Queenstown in the south, the self-styled (and rightly so) adventure capital of the world. There you can do things like bungee-jump from a helicopter, and fly this interesting plane around which is tethered to a central pole. I don't know how many people do those things, but a popular attraction here is a jet-boat tour up one of the rivers. The aerial tramway in Queenstown up to the top of a local mountain gives you a spectacular view of the entire area. There is a decent restaurant at the top, which makes for a popular dining spot with a great view in the evening.

On the north island, another interesting and fun thing I did in Auckland was to take the Rangitoto Island tour in Auckland Bay on my last day there, which takes you around this small, volcanic island in the middle of the bay. Also Waiheke Island made for an interesting overnight stay in Auckland bay before flying out the next day. Kelly Tarkington's Arctic Experience is worth seeing. And last but not least, Auckland has some surprisingly good restaurants and dining.

Overall, an excellent and well-written guide and worth the price. New Zealand is one of the best and most enjoyable countries I've ever visited, and this guide was an important part of that experience on my trip.

They don't seem to require reading classic literature in the schools any more, so I decided to build a classics library for my 12-year old granddaughter. She has read them all, including this one, so it wasn't a bad idea. Now, if I could just get her to call her old grandfather more often....

One of my three favorite books from my childhood. I have read reviews of how difficult this book is to understand or read by small children. Nonsense! I first read this book when I was 6 years old, one year after learning English and had no problem with it. I read it many times until my mother threw it away. I looked for it for a long time and finally found it 54 years after first reading it. I still love it.

This book is okay. I wouldn't read it more than twice. It was really boring till the end. Then it got good. I would recomend this book to kids from ages 9 - teens. Rebecca has a life that i would never want. She is so happy and bouncy. I don't like that. In my opinion, this is book is not very exciting. I was so glad when I finished it. Because then I could read a better book. It was kind of hard to follow, cause a lot of things were going on at once. I really think younger kids should read it. I don't think it deserves a classic. But that is just in my opinon. Read it if you would like. I just didn't like it. It was okay though. So good luck!

As I started to read this book I got a sense that it was not going to be the thrilling adventure that I usually look for in a book. This was okay because sometimes you need a book that can slow it down and you can relax with. I am sorry to report that this book was so slow it almost came to a stop. Although it is a story of a girl who moves from her farm home to a small town to live with her aunts nothing more exciting than Rebecca selling enough soap to get a lamp for some friends that aren't very well off happens. While it is a great thing to see family helping family to get an education, something more adventurous like a love interest, or a friend saving her best and most loved toy from the clutches of a wicked aunt could spice up a story. Maybe I am a reader who is not excited by someone learning to sew and this kind of book is your cup of tea but it is not mine. In my opinion the lack of substanance is almost suffocating and I will not be drowned by another reading of this book.

Rebecca has been my friend since I read her story in a cheap Whitman hardback when I was a little girl. A lively and creative 10-year-old girl is sent to her maiden aunts to receive a good education, but chafes under the restrictive yoke of her elder aunt. As Rebecca learns to channel her energies into positive action, she remains unquenched by her dour aunt and lends joy to both the younger aunt, but also the elderly Cobbs and her best friend, Emma Jane Perkins. The vocabulary in the story may be a bit high for younger readers as REBECCA was not actually written as a children's story; it was the best seller of the year 1904. There is a sequel, NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, that is worth finding, with more adventures of Rebecca, the Simpson children, and even Emma Jane.

We have used the Eyewitness Travel Guide during all our trips to numerous places. They are consistently well presented and easy to use. The Eyewitness Guide to New Zealand was no exception. We are using to plan our itinerary and will use it during our stay there.

It's a nice and thick travel review of all the places most people would want to visit, when going to New Zealand for the first time. The smallish pictures are good for giving you an overview of the history and sites, and all of the major cities are covered.

This is a nice reference guide when walking around town -- there are good pics and maps and it's a pretty light book. However it does not provide many recommendations on where to stay/eat so it's not too helpful in the planning stage except to get you excited about what you are going to see. Probably could've gone without it, but giving it 3-stars for being pretty... :)

The DK books are always great, if a bit heavy because the pictures are so good. Another benefit, if you don't get there the guide makes you feel like you have been there anyway.

Eyewithess Travel Guides give the best overall overview of any travel book or other travel product - good organization; great pictures, maps and other graphics; interesting & concise text and descriptions about history, national foods and beverages, etc.; good suggestions for lodging and eating. They are excellet resource and reference books, but they are concise enough to give a relatively complete overview but short enough to quickly convey information, especially if you do not have a lot of free time.

I believe that carefully reading about a desination is important for planning any trip. The Eyewithess Travel Guides are the best way to obtain that overview and prioritize where you want to go. The New Zealand guide is enormous help to us with our planning.

Love, adventure and seafaring around the world. A little known but very real story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, at the time of the last great world discoveries. That the protagonists were often performing heroic feats against their will, as in the case of the deported prostitutes, makes the tale even more captivating. This was enjoyable reading, instructive history and made you feel like you were one of the crew!

This was a wonderful book to read to get the facts on the Australian migration from England. I highly recommend it.

Novel or not, this book should be suggested or required reading in any women's studies/history course. The description of the petty crimes for which women were convicted, and the circumstances under which they were convicted, followed by their punishment and survival mechanisms are both entertaining and thoughtprovoking. The settler mothers of Australia! I wonder how many people today could trace their lineage back to these brave women!

This book was absolutely fascinating and Sian Rees did an exemplary job in bringing the time and events to life. Definitely worth adding to your library. On a side note, there is a 60 minute documentary now airing on "Secrets of the Dead" on PBS which tells the story of several contemporary Australian women doing research on their family histories. They discover that their multi-great-grandmothers were among those chronicled in this book. The episode, entitled "Voyage of the Courtesans" (2005), combines these women's searches with re-enactments and interviews with experts and Sian Rees herself. It is an excellent show to partner with an excellent book.

Like most readers I was probably attracted by the title and cover of this book and I wasn't disappointed. After reading this true story its obvious that a person really doesn't want a return to the "Good Old Days." They weren't very good at all. This is how most people actually scratched their ways through life in those days. Men were hanged for minor infractions and women were often burned at the stake for the same tiny infraction. Being exiled to one of the colonies was a big improvement. However, getting to those far away colonies was dangerous and totally unpleasant from every standpoint. Those long ocean voyages on wooden sailing ships were terrible even in the best circumstances. There was nothing romantic about braving the elements on a ship where the entire vessel smelled like an open sewer all the time. There was nothing romantic about having to share your body with members of the crew. There was nothing romantic about being becalmed and suffering from starvation and all manner of shipboard illnesses. After finishing this book a person will have to catch their breath, wipe off the smelly sea water and readjust to living on land, and apprecaiting the wonderful benefits of this century. This is history as it really happened and much of it was absolutely brutal. It's an eye opening read and hard to put down until the last page is absorbed. Then the reader will want to seek out the memoir of Mariner John Nicol who provided the only first-hand record of this incredible journey. Much of this book was lifted from the published recollections he dictated to a helpful publisher when he was 60+ years old.

Auckland Island? Where in the world was that I wondered when I fist picked up this book. As a lover of adventure stories I thought I had heard and read of most remote spots and incredible tales of survival. This was a new part of the world for me. I have been to New Zealand but was never aware of this group of islands to the South. When the schooner Grafton was wrecked on Auckland Island in 1864 I figured there was no way these guys were going to survive. The pages began to turn and I could not stop reading. With remarkable leadership and togetherness this little band of five managed to live and eventually return safely after months of isolation. Unbeknown to them another ship had been wrecked on the other side of the island, yet the two groups never linked up. Their tale of survival is in sharp contrast to one another as most of the other group of nineteen died, with only three survivors. Joan Druett has done a remarkable job of detailing the account of these two groups. If you love adventure and tales of survival, this is a great book. It takes you to a rare part of the world few of us know about and most will never visit. I strongly recommend this as an addition to your library.

Kept my attention. Enough facts to make it believable, but almost too many to believe all that happened. I'm always divided when I read a novel like story based on "events". Author spent most of the book on the first shipwreck and didn't draw too many similarities for the two accounts. This type story would certainly make a good screenplay. Had the same feeling for me as when I read "The Perfect StorM".

In January of 1864, the Australian schooner, Grafton, wrecked on Auckland Island, an inhospitable and inclement land mass in the South Pacific, with a five-man crew. Half of this book is their story of survival. Under the leadership of captain Thomas Musgrave and the well-rounded ingenuity of the French prospector Francois Raynal, the crew used everything at their disposal. They built an impressive shelter, made clothes, shoes, tools for hunting seals, and even a working forge so they could create nails to build a small boat.

By unimaginable coincidence, five months after the Grafton wrecked, the freighter Invercauld, on its way from Melbourne to Callao, also crashed off the coast of Auckland Island with its 25-man crew. Nineteen survivors swam ashore on the northern coast of the island. There, they hunkered down in a state of panic. Their captain, George Delgarno, showed exceptionally inept leadership. Instead of encouraging teamwork among his men, he insisted on the same strict ranked hierarchy as was followed on the ship. Soon there was infighting. Men broke off from the group. In strict contrast to the Grafton situation, there was very little in the way of an organized effort for survival. The situation quickly deteriorated, with men dying of illness and starvation. The situation grew so dire, and so ill-equiped were the survivors, that some resorted to cannibalization of their dead comrades.

Because a mountainous region separated the two groups, neither group knew, at any time, of the other's existence. In that way, the simultaneous shipwrecks set up a fascinating social experiment. While the castaways from Grafton were fortunate in that their location was slightly more hospitable, with more edible vegetation and seals nearby, they also showed heroic resolve and resourcefulness. Their story alone would have been an amazing survival story, culminating in a desperate, five-day suicide mission in a boat of their own construction--an undersized and ill-equipped vessel that they optimistically dubbed Rescue--from Auckland Island to Stewart Island in New Zealand. In the end, all five crewmen survived the ordeal, which lasted nearly two years.

The other side of the tale is much more grim. Of the Invercauld crew, only three survived--the captain, first mate, and crewman Robert Holding--and then only thanks to Holding's resourcefulness and good luck in the form of a ship passing the island.

This is a fascinating book. Druett's extensive research and analysis are paid off in a story that is both enthralling and full of lessons about teamwork, leadership, and what it takes to survive in one of the more inhospitable corners of the sea.

There are not enough stars to show how much I enjoyed this enthralling story of survival in an extremely hostile environment. Historian Joan Druett, drawing from journals kept by the shipwrecked crew throughout their ordeal and later accounts of the survivors, describes the conditions and their, at times fruitless, struggle for survival. The vivid picture she paints captured my imagination so fully I could visualise the wild, frigid island, the accommodations they built and their trips hunting and foraging for food. I was repeatedly astonished by the staggering ingenuity of the castaways. If this book had been a work of fiction the tales of skill and craftsmanship of the survivors would have been too far fetched and completely unbelievable which only served to make this factual story so much more enjoyable.

The inspiring leadership of the Captain of the Grafton who ensured the survival of his entire crew through the hardships of the months spent on the Auckland Islands and the adaptability of the men he led reminded me very much of Ernest Shackelton and his crew Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

I could not put it down until I had finished it and, as a result of reading this book, my first of Joan Druett's, I have become a firm fan of her writing, determined to read all of her books. So far I have been just as delighted with her other works as I was with this one.

On January 3, 1864, the schooner Grafton wrecked on the southern end of Auckland Island, 285 miles south of New Zealand. On May 10 of the same year, the square-rigger Invercauld wrecked on the northwestern promontory of the same island. The five survivors of the Grafton and the 19 survivors of the Invercauld co-habited the same island for an entire year without either group ever once being aware that the other group was there, the reason being the twenty miles of "impassable cliffs and chasms" between the north and south ends of the islands. In Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World, maritime historian Joan Druett tells the vastly different stories of the two groups of survivors.

From journals, letters, published books and other research documents, Druett has interwoven the stories of the two groups and shown how through cooperation, discipline, hard work, routine, ingenuity, and respect the survivors of the Grafton had a far different experience and outcome from the group of Invercauld survivors, whose leadership failed them, who splintered into groups, and who gave themselves over to the despair of their situation.

We come to know each of the men from the Grafton as they hunt for food, build shelter, make clothing and tools, and wait to be rescued for almost two years before deciding to try to build a boat and escape. We watch the men from the Invercauld succumb to apathy and lethargy, or else to cannibalism. Only one resourceful seaman had the ability to cope with their circumstances and helped keep the final few survivors alive.

Druett has very skillfully penned a fascinating tale of human nature, death, and survival in a hostile environment. It is a book that is hard to put down, with a story that is unbelievable - except that it is true. Amazingly, the few Invercauld survivors are rescued, and the Grafton castaways make an heroic journey back to safety. More than just history, this is an amazing book about survival against all odds and how that survival depends at least in part on attitude. It is a good lesson for us all.

Another great read from Derek Hansen, this one set on the 1960's on Great Barrier Island, east of Auckland, New Zealand.

It's a story of a WWII Burma Railway survivor, an ex-Police inspector and a young woman who joins them on a remote area of the island. Thrown into the mix are a Japanese trawler captain, fishing illegally in NZ waters and Navy Lieutenant Commander trying to catch him.

Brilliantly written and hard to put down, I enjoyed this as much as Hansen's 'Lunch with the Generals' and 'Lunch with Mussolini'.

I started this book without noticing who wrote it. Then partway through, the female character Rosie was behaving in a completely unbelieveable, man's-fantasy way, so I looked and sure enough, the author is a man.

Women don't act the way Rosie does - for example, there's this lunatic running around without any clothes on, and Rosie can't wait to go to bed with him, even though he lives nearby on a deserted island she just moved to. There's none of the normal female caution about what appears to be a mentally unbalanced pervert, especially one who lives nearby that you might not be able to get rid of if you encourage him. But then, later it turns out Rosie goes to bed with everybody! What a gal!

There's also page upon page of boring details about military strategizing on how to catch some Japanese fishermen. ZZZZZ!!! I skipped over that part! (half of the book!)

Also, Rosie supposedly had been a medical doctor and had had a bunch of other time-consuming careers, all before her mid-30's. I don't see how she could have done all those things unless she got her degrees from a mail-order catalog!

All in all, this is not a book for women who want to read an exciting adventure story about a woman (which is what I thought it was going to be until I read it.) It's a chauvinistic adventure story for men.

What a delightful story!

The location is different. The plot is a stretch, yet not so much as to be totally unbelievable. The abridged audio version moves along briskly.

The main characters are well defined. Each is flawed and self-defeating, though with redeeming attributes.

There is goodness, impropriety, failure, heroic success, some sadness, humor, action and love. I was swept along by it all.

The reader's performance is entertaining. His voices and expression capture the mood and add to the enjoyment.

Sole Survivor doesn't fit conveniently into a standard category. It's not Mystery, or Adventure, or Romance. I'll file it under "Favorites".

In this book the reader is introduced to three characters, Bernie, the dying alcoholic, Red the War Veteran and Angus the Scottish writer. Upon Bernie's death his shack on Great Barrier Island is inherited by former Doctor Rosie Trethewey. Red and Angus are both deeply troubled by this sudden and unexpected invasion into their reclusive world.Rosie is determined to make a new life for herself on the island in spite of what Red or Angus do to discourage her. This book is a wondrous read about 3 loners who find out that they do need each other after all.Derek Hansen is a masterful storyteller and weaves his tale with a deft hand.

The book is really about three disfunctional loners that live in shacks on the remote northern tip of New Zealand's Great Barrier Island. Frist is Red who is still traumatized by his horrible wartime experiences as a P.O.W. at the hands of the Japanese. Second we have Angus who is a retired police officer. Both these men have very rigid and private lifestyles.

Now inject into this wilderness Rosie, who inherits her shack at the death of the third and only other resident. She moves into their world and turns it upside down. The book is about them working out their relationships. And how they deal with a big Japanese trawler that threatens to destroy the sea bed and their food supply.

This is one love story I did not mind reading. It is full of adventure and suspense. You can almost see the layout of cove which they have made their remote home.

I first read it in junior high school 35 years ago. Took me about two seatings to read it . Very engrossing for a seventh grader.
It is a straight ahead narrative about three ordinary but resourcefull sailors whose plane went down & they were marooned in a rubber raft on the vast ocean during World WarII. They fought off starvation, heat, boredom & all the dangers the ocean affords. Boys will like it even though it doesn't have the violence of most war stories. Tom Parker delivers the telling in a good tight reading style that captures the tone of the story with out adding or detracting from the natural drama. Easy to stay with on a long drive.

Imagine being on a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for 34 days without food, water, and shelter. In the fictional book The Raft by Robert Trumbull this is a reality.
The main character of this story is officer Dixon, who was the pilot of a plane that crashed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Officer Dixon was a leader of the two other men, Gene and Tony. He was determined to sail the raft and bring them back to safety. He made most of the decisions for the others. The raft was only 8ft by 4-foot, and was only meant for one person. The only supplies they had were a pocketknife and a gun. When it rained out they used their clothes to catch the rain to drink. To catch their food they used their knife and a gun. They caught some fish, and a tiger shark to eat. They had to eat the food raw because they had no way to cook it. Gene had an encounter with a shark. He gets a shark bite on his hand, but he manages to survive. They are not aware that a hurricane is about to hit them.
I would recommend this book because it is very interesting, it kept my attention, and it was suspenseful.
Dilan McCaffery

Thanks everyone for the great reviews!! I must however point out that being the neice of Anthony Pastula and Gene Aldrich that this book is somewhat misleading, basically because it is from one person's viewpoint that had to be the hero. The plane, btw, didn't exactly crash. After being told several times by both my Uncles that they were running out of fuel, IT RAN OUT OF GAS!!! Not something the hero of his book would confess to I suppose. My Uncle's were also not helpless, uneducated, weaklings as they are sometimes made out to be either. They weren't that GREEN. They also had nothing to do with this book, because obviously, their recounts of their time at sea didn't match Dixon's. They both chose to step out of the spotlight and go on with their lives. For those that did wonder in the other reviews, they not only remained the closest of friends but they became brother-in-laws! Gene married Tony's sister. To add to that, Gene's sister married Tony's brother and that's where I come from! It is truly by the grace of God and Gene's strong personal believe in the Lord that he shared with the other two men that saved them.

The story is an astounding tale of survival - 3 Navy airmen completely lost ast sea, bobbling in a tiny rubberized raft before the development of more advanced navigational equipment, and more attention to survival kits that came about later in the war.

While the narrative does touch on moments of anger and doubt, it is told with a staunch 1940s, WW II bravado that concentrates more on the bravery and resourcefulness of the 3 protagonists. Whereas today, a story of this sort would probably include the psychological and philosophical issues that arose, and the deep thoughts that men in this predicament would undoubtedly experience, the tale comes across instead like a John Wayne movie. The courage and fortitude of Dixon (the narrator) putting the morale of his raftmates above the secret truths he knows - that things might be worse than they appeared (and one has to wonder how much worse they could possibly get!) seems to come up a few times, for example. Very little weakness, very little disagreement, very little real fear is described, or even acknowledged during the ordeal these men suffered.

It's a fascinating story, and a tale of resroucefulness that is inspiring, but I'd agree with one of the earlier reviewers that "something is missing." I think it's what's hidden under the shroud of what was the style of the day. Bravado. It lacks the vulnerabilty that might might make the story more human, more firightening, more true to life. I believe this is what ultimately keeps you from getting as involved in the characters and events as you might, and feeling that you are really experiencing what happened on that tiny raft, adrift as sea.

This is an account of 3 crewmembers of a ditched bomber surviving for 34 days in a very small, ill-equipped raft. The story is interesting enough to tell itself, so I felt that the straightforward writing style was quite appropriate.

Although the book was actually written by a journalist, it is written in the first person as if the pilot, Harold Dixon, were telling the tale.

The events occurred in early 1942, and the book was also published in 1942. The edition I read was the original, and did not mention John M. Waters anywhere, so I don't know why his name is listed as an author in the 1992 reprint.

The fact that this book was written shortly after Pearl Harbor is borne home by the fact that there are several details (such as the location of the island where they washed up) that the author omits "for reasons of national security". Also, the jacket of the original 1942 edition says "When you have finished reading this book, don't just place it on a shelf. Our men need books as well as guns. Books build morale. Send this book today. Average book requires 6 cents postage." They give the address of the 4th Corps Area Headquarters in Atlanta.

If you enjoy this sort of tale, you'll probably also like "Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea", by Steve Callahan, a bit more philosophical account of his more recent lone ordeal in the Atlantic.

The method you can learn from reading this book may very well end neck pain for you, as it did for me. The excercises, though seemingly simple, when used regularly, have the potential for ridding yourself of the problems associated with neck pain. The straightforward approach to instruction makes this book invaluable. If you haven't heard of McKenzie's approach, get this book.

After being out a week from work due to lower back pain, a friend let me borrow this one and Treat Your Own Back. Also bought this one 7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life: How to Rapidly Relieve Back and Neck Pain. All three were very helpful as was gettting in a pool & stretching. By combining these exercises Robin recommends with pool stretching, the pain was relieved within a few weeks.

I have also been using Targus AWE26US Ergonomic M-stand for Notebook Computers at work with my notebook which has eliminated most all of my upper neck pain. Also, walking for 20-30 minutes each day at lunch and getting a better chair really helps lower back pain. Steelcase's Leap chair has been the best one I've used so far.

The other thing you hear a lot is not to sit more than 20 minutes without getting up for at least a minute or two. I use this program, "Take A Break", which blinks on my laptop to remind me to do that. [...]

I had an awful pain in the neck. I went to a chiropractor and got no relief. So, I ordered this little book. The exercises are simple but effective, common sense really. No more nagging pain and as long as I perform the exercises my neck feels pretty good!

This book came from a recommendation from my orthopedic.. he informed me there was pretty much nothing I could do about my low back except for "Quit with the running and high impact exercises". This book basically tells you to sit up straight, but a back support under your lower back, and lie several times a day on your stomach, and push yourself up on your arms and hold that position to reinstate the arch in your lower back.. well, duh.. If you are in decent shape this one is not for you. I could see where it may help if you are old, overweight, out of shape, and don't know what else to do..

read this book and use the methods BEFORE surgery. What the doctors DO NOT tell you about diskectomy and fusion surgery is that you will be disabled for life and will never be able to do many activities ever again.

The book is excellent for neck mobility and health. Try it as an option before going under the knives. . . .

Tom Keneally's The Commonwealth of Thieves is an excellent read, well researched and written in a smooth and economical style that gives the reader a thorough introduction to the early history of the Botany Bay settlement. My sole complaint is that it essentially ends in 1793 with the return of Captain Phillip, the colony's first governor, to Britain, the colony having after much difficulty and doubt finally become a viable settlement. Keneally's style is so engaging and the events so intriguing that it leaves you wanting more, beyond the epilogue in which he relates what became of some of the key individuals (and their descendants) who survived the difficult times of the early years.

But while Keneally's history is limited in its breadth, it compensates for that in its depth. His thorough research brings to life the conditions of Britain's legal and penal system that led to the idea of the Botany Bay project, the difficulties that the transportees faced in the ships where so many died before even setting foot in the utterly alien land they were sent to, the hardships faced in the early years where the colony was repeatedly faced with the prospect of starvation, and of particular interest, the difficulties between the British intruders and the native Eora (the aborigines).

I learned quite a few things from this book, one of which was how it was the American Revolution that indirectly led to the Botany Bay experiment. Prior to the Revolution, Britain had for decades used its American colonies as a method of reducing its prison population by transportation, and when the Revolution put an end to that outlet, it became necessary to find another. The dates tell it all: the American Revolution ended in 1783, and the first convict fleet departed for Australia in 1787.

Keneally goes into great detail showing how both the harshness of the British legal system and the severe over-crowding of the prison system created a need for transportation. Drawing on the historical records, he shows how most of the crimes involved were crimes of property, i.e. petty theft and such, for which the invariable penalty was death. That is the choice many of the prisoners faced: taking their chances in a far-off unknown land or death. It is easy to see why most (though surprisingly not all) opted for transportation.

It is also interesting to see how many of the individual transportees (and their military overseers) fared. Many, far too many, died. But many not only survived, they ultimately prospered.

Another thing Keneally did extremely well was to show the Eora point of view of this period, both in how the Eora saw these strange pale-skinned intruders and how the British and the Eora cultures were so different that misunderstanding was not only inevitable, it was insurmountable. The worst incidents between the British settlers and the Eora resulted from both sides thinking that they were being understood clearly when in fact they were not being understood at all.

All in all, this book is a very enjoyable and very educational read. I only wish that there had been more. Highly recommended.

This book provides an excellent and detailed feel for what life must have ben like for the early settlers of Australia and the environment from which they came. It is difficult to imagine how anybody survived those early days and the hardships they had to put up with.

Keneally has produced a fascinating introduction to the foundation of Australia, a fantastic mix of the high politics and the fascinating lives of the first settlers and their complex relationship with the Aboriginal peoples.

Robert Hughes,'Fatal Shore' redressed? Not quite. Hughes's well-honed invective sits uneasily besides Keneally's pragmatic prose. Keneally extolls the virtuous outcome of Australia's first governor, Arthur Phillip's benevolent authority, and his establishment, against all odds of Australia's criminal society. Whereas Hughes feels troubled by these origins, Keneally, the ongoing grief of the indigenous inhabitants apart, senses triumph. The writing does not wear its research excessively, and the setting of the settlers amidst an alien environment and culture is as balanced as any recent history I have encountered. We get thumbnail portraits of a large cast of people that bring the story closer to us and a graphic sense of the hardships endured, which few present day residents around the harbour city would easily imagine. Most of the bods on the book's positive side of the ledger have their names embedded in the city, a minor intetrest to local readers. And Glebe? the name of the vegetable patch attached to a church; never knew that either!

The author of Schindler's List brings us his 37th book, a history of the four years during which white Australia was born. Thomas Keneally competes with Robert Hughes' epic history of Australia's origin that covers a span of 80 years, chronicling the white settlers as oppressive. But Keneally's fresh, novelistic history has found its own place in Australian historiography; it scrutinizes a short time period, providing a multifaceted and profound study of the historical characters that birthed Australia.

Midwife to this birth was Great Britain, who sent a captain of her royal navy, Arthur Phillip, to oversee as governor a penal-colony experiment with 759 thieves, prostitutes, and criminal children. The poorly planned experiment could have easily become a disaster, had Phillip not been both authoritative and compassionate. Ultimately, Keneally admits bewilderment as to the true nature of Phillip, the narrative's potential hero, given his "nature so complex and hidden behind official formality."

Keneally illuminates the white settlement against the backdrop of the then virtually unknown Aborigines, whose contact with the criminal settlers kept tension high. The useful historiographical theme of dichotomy between two cultures takes shape here, with Keneally's description of the Aboriginal worldview, and his admission of its impossible incongruence with the intent of the Empire to colonize and cultivate.

Keneally tactfully narrates the clashes between the two discordant populations without romanticizing either, portraying with equal emphasis the contrasting barbarity and decency both groups exhibited. For example, Phillip's would-be-hero counterpart, Woolaware Bennelong, captured as an Aboriginal translator, assisted the white settlers after his escape, to the point that he was finally disowned by his own people.

Keneally's tactful tone has its own purpose. Where Hughes' history did not hesitate to weigh in against the colonial invaders, Keneally sustains his narrative along the middle ground, allowing Australians to realize their heritage as less melodramatic, and oppressive.

With Phillip's return to England after his term, Australians were left without a founding father-figure. Keneally's history fills in that gap, with assurances from Keneally that he can make out a positive resemblance between the first governor's pragmatism and thoroughness, and that of the country today.

Armchair Interviews says: Very well-done history.