Buccaneer Books

Its a fast-paced book with few lulls, not 2 many dead moments. It is much funnier than I thought before picking it up, and the interaction between the 4 friends is classic. The style is brisk and light, often tounge-in-check. While long, it breezes by. But a few warnings: do not look at it with modern eyes. The value system is flawed (in addition Dumas has a habit of both glorifying & making fun of them nearly symultaneously) but this is not a book to read for a complex theme or deep thinking. To Dumas' credit, that is not at all what he set out to do, so its unfair when people hold that againist him. What this book is is a fun adventure that resists being put down.

This is the story of a poor, young, French man, named d'Artagnan Gascony. He leaves his home with only a sword, an old horse, and his family name. Fate steps in and he manages to meet and make angry not one, not two, but three of the kings swordsman, known as "Musketeers". They each decide to duel him, one right after the other, but only d'Artagnan knows this. When the first duel is to begin, all three Musketeers arrive, one to fight and the other two to act as seconds. Just as they begin exchanging blows the Cardinal's guard arrives and attempts to arrest the three Musketeers and d'Artagnan, forcing them to act together. The four defeat the Cardinal's guards and the adventure begins.

This book is loaded with characters who are either extremely evil such as the conniving Cardinal, or the wicked Midlady de Winter, or righteously heroic like the musketeers, d'Artagnan, his faithful servant Planchet , and love Constance. There are many tense moments, sword fights, and situation which require skill and offer danger to the friends of d'Artagnan.

When you consider that The Three Musketeers was written in 1846, over one hundred and fifty years ago, it is amazing that it can hold the attention of the modern reader, but that it does. Alexander Dumas allows you to see through his writing the details surrounding the situations, you are not a reader, but a by stander in d'Artagnan's exciting life. So dig in and be prepared to be transported back to France, in the 1800's, where wit, bravery, friendship and sword play will have you cheering for the Musketeers!

-- Peter Brodnax

I bought this classic novel on cd thinking it would hold the interest of my 2 grade school boys, who enjoy books on cd while driving to and from school. They did not like the narrator's snobby french accent nor could they understand many of the words. This is a great cd for high school or adults but not children. A bust for us.

In the very midst of the last Harry Potter being published, I picked up this title from my library, mainly because of the attractive cover and easy-to-read design and typeface. I also wanted to see what a great classic felt like. I was highly rewarded.
Certainly this amazing and ground-breaking work is dated in places, particularly when men are disposed of without the least thought and women are placed on pedestals like goddesses. Nonetheless, the ease with which Dumas develops the ties between Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan is a work of art in itself. One cannot say these sophisticated gentlemen are utterly carefree, but they deal with what life offers them with a very modern sense of skepticism, romance, and adventure. No religious figure can fool them with absurd piety. No falsity can entrap them. Each protects and supports the other, yet each character is unique, and we feel we know them thoroughly.
The plot tumbles forward, full of adventure, intrigue, romance, betrayal, and evil. Dumas is a great story teller, although at times wrapped up with himself to the point of tedium, but those passages can be read over quickly. A rich supporting cast of characters, from Cardinal Richelieu to Queen Anne to Milady, who is the incarnation of evil, make this work amazingly entertaining, even over the course of 600 pages.
It would be a great exercise to contrast this one work with that of Harry Potter. Obviously, Dumas, who was enormously popular, is writing for an adult audience, and does not spare us sexual exploits. But the forces unleashed are similar in both works: good, loyalty, and truth versus evil, deception, and falsehood. Interesting.
Just a word on the translation: It was lively, modern, and smooth. No awkwardness was apparent. Descriptions were crystal clear.

I have put off reading this book for years... mainly because of its size, and the fact that it was written in French, and I just didn't want to put that much work into anything. I finally convinced myself that I really needed to read this because I enjoy the movies so much.

In the beginning... I was worried. The language was easy enough to follow (concern number 1 gone) but the writing style seemed a bit loose and haphazard. Rather than my mind being boggled, I found myself getting irritated by the wandering I felt that the book was doing. For the first quarter of the book I had started to question my choice of reading this. At first D'Artagnan irritated me because he seemed so stupid, and ready to fight anyone and everyone over anything, then our introduction to the three musketeers Athos, Aramis and Porthos were also ready to "cross swords" with anyone at even the most minor offence. The first several sword fights were rather sparse as far as description and excitement so it didn't "thrill" me the way I had hoped.

Enter the Cardinal, he was interesting... devious and maniacal... I thought to myself that the book could be picking up. But sadly the first half of the book really was nothing but D'Artagnan pining over women, and the Musketeers drinking, eating or spending money on more equipment. I was a bit weirded out by their lackeys... each of them had a servant who was all but a slave. These servants were only mentioned when they were being scolded, or offered up to do their master's bidding.

The story began to get interesting with the introduction of Milady, one of the most intelligent and evil villainesses I have encountered in a book. Vile of nature and black of heart she is a truly evil being that really spices up the book. Once she was brought into the picture, the tedious story opened up into an interesting tale of intrigue, a battle of wits between her, the cardinal and the musketeers.

There is a fair amount of history in this book, however much of it has been altered with creative license so I wouldn't take the events as gospel. I guess I can see why this is a classic, however I would have to say I preferred "The Count of Monte Cristo" to this. Had the first half been more entertaining I would have really loved this book. I'm just glad I kept reading so that I could get to the interesting part.

I suggested to my 14-year old son, who wanted to read a non-fiction crime/courtroom book that he try "Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi. He not only read the entire 400 page book, he was mesmerized and wrote the following review for his fellow teenagers:

From Douglas:
"Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi is about a madman, a cult, gruesome murders, and a spellbinding criminal trial. I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in true crime or suspence thrillers. This book is about a man named Charles Manson and a string of muders he and people he called his "family" committed. I am recommending this book to all teenagers who have never herd the name, Manson. I am also recommending this book for adults, for it is a hair-raising and gruesome experience that will leave you begging for more.
The book is written by Vincent Bugliosi, who was the Los Angeles County District Attorney, who prosecuted Charles Manson and his followers. He documents , in the book, how he became totally consumed by this extraordinary case. He writes about how Manson actually "played mind games" with him during the trial. Although these murders took place almost forty years ago, I believe that it is important for us to know about this case because Manson and his followers are still in prison and still come up for parole. It is also important for us to see how one man managed to control the minds and actions of so many, so that maybe we can prevent it from happening again.
This bokk is written in a very readable style; you won't be able to put it down. I highly recommend it to all teenagers, who enjoy crime stories - fiction or non-fiction. It's hard to believe it really happened!

This book is not for everyone. It is extremely scary and disturbing. At the same time, it is a fascinating look at the police work and prosecution that brought the murderous Manson Family to justice. The book is hard to put down; the in depth discussion on presenting a criminal case in court and developing evidence to support the case is outstanding. The main complaint is that the book is a few hundred pages too long. The author seems a little too self-promoting, but then again he did get a prosecution on one of the biggest murders in history.

Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry paint a riveting portrait of the Manson murders and the Manson "family". Being the lead and, later, sole prosecutor
of the Manson gang for those vicious murders puts Bugliosi in the ideal position to tell the real story in all its gory detail, and he does it in such a spellbinding fashion. I could hardly put it down. If you truly want to know this horrible and tragic story inside out, this is the ONLY book to read.

I bet Vincent never thought people would one day have home computers and be able to read the police reports and see the blood evidence because once you do that, you quickly find the book is complete B.S. The crimes could have never taken place as described by Vince. Manson was railroaded and believe me when I tell you I'm no fan of Charlie's but it is true, he was railroaded. Manson is doing life in prison from a story that is a complete lie. Man, what a country we live in when a person can become a millionaire by using the vicious murders of 7 people and no one challenges him. You should be ashamed of yourself Bugliosi. Only in America.

I initially read this book as a 14 year old and due to the recent publicity regarding Susan Atkins, decided to read it again.

The book chronicles the true story of the murders of the LaBianca's as well as the murders commonly referred to the "Tate" murders. It also touches on the murders of Gary Hinman and Shorty Shea, who are often forgotten victims of the Manson Family.

Essentially, the murders begin with Charles Manson, a career criminal with a poor childhood who was practically raised in youth homes and detention facilities, etc. Despite his poor upbringing and limited education, Charlie was a bright man who had the ability to spot and exploit weaknesses in other people.

Upon his latest release from prison, Manson begins to attract a group of followers, mainly comprised of young girls, and a few young men, whom all seem to have dropped out of society and are experimenting heavily and frequently with drugs. Manson sees their dissatisfaction with society and using that, as well as sex and drugs further breaks down their morals and values until ultimately they look at him as Jesus Christ and look to him to make their every decision for them.

Manson, disillusioned with his failure as a musician, begins to envision a new future for himself and his Family, in part guided by the Beatles musics, which he believes is full of secret messages. Manson believes that there will ultimately be a race war with the black man being victorious. In the meantime Manson and his family will retreat to the desert where they will find a hole leading to the bottomless pit where they will live until the black man realizes that he is incapable of ruling/running society as a whole. At that time, Manson will emerge and become leader of the country, if the world. Charlie calls this chain of events "Helter Skelter".

When Helter Skelter fails to come to fruition in a timely manner, he decides to incite it himself, by murdering rich or upper class white people. His theory is that white society will believe the murders were committed by the black man, and will turn on the black man, thereby getting the race war rolling.

The book further goes on the describe the investigation (or lack thereof on the part of some officers) and ultimate arrest and conviction, as well as an epilogue and afterward in the book with updates.

I have read some of the reviews, and have to agree that in some instances, Vincent Bugliosi was perhaps too wordy and a lot of stuff could have been cut out.

I also noticed that many of the reviews accuse Bugliosi of manufacturing the Helter Skelter motive for his own purposes. While I have not read the other Manson books, I am not inclined to believe this. First of all, he got the idea from many of the family members, many of whom got on the witness stand and testified to Manson's belief system as well as his many statements that "the time for Helter Skelter is now", etc. I also noted that many of those reviewers expressed support for Manson with the oft repeated phrase "he wasn't there", "he didn't kill them", blah blah blah. For the record, he was an active participant in the Hinman murders, slicing his ear off. He was present and aware of what was occurring and ultimately was the one who ordered the kill. He was also present at the Shorty Shea murder, for at least a portion of it. Again, it was at his behest that Shorty was murdered. Further, he is the one who sent the murderers to the Tate residence that night, he is the one who told them to get their knives, he is the one who told Tex to murder everyone and make it gruesome. As if that weren't enough, the next evening, it was he who entered the LaBianca home first and tied them up and left them there with full knowledge of what would happen to them. For anyone who is aware of the law, if someone is killed at your request, if you participate in a felony (i.e., cutting someone's ear off, or say breaking into their home and tying them up), and ultimately those people die in conjunction with those some events in which you particiated, you are responsible as if you killed them yourself.

If anyone is in doubt as to Manson's control over the female defendant's in this case, one only need to read the vast material available regarding the trial and how he conrolled them in court, and how he attempted to control the trial. If they were unable, while their freedom and very lives were on the line, to exercise their own free will and make their own decisions, it's not a stretch to imagine that he was able to control their day to day actions, as well as order them to kill with the expectation that it be carried out.

Additionally, the former Manson Family members who were involved, many of whom are still incarcerated, to this day state that was the motive/theory behind the killings. If it was not Manson's true motive, then he failed to share that with other family members.

Further, in an interview with Charles "Tex" Watson, a reporter asked him if he had read Helter Skelter, to which Watson replied that he had and it was pretty accurate.

Either way, it is a very informative book, and while on the wordy side, provides a detailed and inside look at the trial and what was going on behind the scenes. Whether the reader chooses to believe in the Helter Skelter theory or not is up to them.

Another book that Dr. L had us read. During the 2008 presidential debate I see one party is trying to buy votes even though the failures of socialism have been proven time and time again throughout history. This is the singular short work on the failures of socialism.

Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom was written at a time when the Labour Party of Britain was openly socialist. Although modern social democrats renounce the 's' word, socialism is indeed the root of their thinking, and in this exposition, his magnus opus, Hayek unabashedly sends socialism to the gutter where it belongs. Hayek's thesis, that socialism and totalitarianism are two birds of the same feather, has stood the test of time, and it continues to show up today in the cases of Venezuela or Bolivia. Hayek was arguably responsible for Labour's (and the Democrats') turn to the right, set in stone by former PM Tony Blair (and former President Clinton). This book is, however, still very relevant, exemplified by the Democrats' plan to invade the health care sector, the countless bureaucracies located in Washington, and President Bush's reckless invasion of privacy (which is related to Hayek's arguments about war time and peace time). Although Hayek often comes off as soft on a number of issues, he could not be nearly as dedicated as Milton Friedman to absolute freedom because the intelligentsia was on the far-left in the 40's.

For classical liberals, modern leftists, and conservatives alike, The Road to Serfdom is extraordinarily eye-opening.

Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel prize winning economist, wrote this brilliant classic as a critique of government intervention and manipulation in markets. I am neither an economist nor a political scientist, but I was led to this book after watching with horror the recent outrages that are consciously being inflicted on us by our elected officials, most recently the bailout and socialization of the two giant mortgage lenders, Freddie and Fannie. I couldn't remember that I ever received any share of the loot when those companies were making huge profits and their CEOs were earning tens of millions per year, but now I find that our elected officials have written a blank check in my name, the taxpayer, to bail out these companies' losses and stupidity, and then handed the check to a group of unelected officials (and, surprise, surprise, those two companies spend hundreds of millions on congressional lobbying). Privatize the gains, socialize the losses: sounds like a win-win situation for somebody.

This kind of disastrous socialism is exactly what Hayek critiques in devastating form in this book, specifically government control of the economy. Apparently, they say, this book has been very influential, but a layman could certainly never tell by looking around. Hayek was writing from the perspective of a central European who had recently witnessed first-hand the unfolding development of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany, and he is warning that the exact same attitudes and policies that had been followed in Germany were uncritically being followed by the Allies, merely at a few years distance.

He begins by recollecting the ideals of old, classic liberalism, "the forgotten road". Of course, in Hayek's context, "liberal" means the true, historic liberalism of limited government, free markets, and private property, not "liberal" in the bastardized sense somehow hijacked by Leftists to mean unlimited government, socialized markets and massive forced wealth redistribution. He looks at the rise of collectivist thinking versus individual (it's all for the greater good); the problems of central planning in a democracy (someone in power makes the economic decisions for everybody else); the downfall of the Rule of Law (government is no longer bound by fixed rules announced beforehand but instead possesses arbitrary power limited only by its own discretion); the inextricable link between centralized economic planning and totalitarian regimes (if we're going to follow a plan, someone's got to force everyone to follow it); the problem of deciding how the society's production will be distributed; a chapter showing that "nothing is more fatal than the present fashion among intellectual leaders of extolling security at the expense of freedom" (Republicans apparently didn't get the memo); how in a socialized economy the worst individuals inevitably rise to the top (Really? Can it be? Obama and McCain?); the necessity of manipulating truth in a socialized society; and the fact that Nazism was a direct outgrowth of socialism and socialist ideology.

The relevance of the points enumerated above does not require comment. We are running madly down the road to serfdom, which is the road of socialism. Unfortunately for those of us who are being dragged along against our will, history is not neutral, and we will suffer the consequences of other peoples' decisions, just as the Jews in Germany did and the Russians in the Soviet Union did. Socialism has always led to poverty and oppression, and freedom, on the rare occasions it has been tried, has produced unparalleled prosperity. Hayek shows in detail why. We've decided to give socialism another try. God help us.

The only, effective way to reject socialism is by attacking it's fundamental philosophical ideas. That collectivism is good and the individual must be sacrificed for the "good of the people". Attacking a philosophy such as communism or socialism, because it is not "practical" is a contradiction and undercuts any argument against such a corrupt philosophy. These ideas are not good in theory but bad in practice. They are evil in theory and therefore evil in practice.

I would like to also recommend Ayn Rand's, "The Virtue of Selfishness". This is THE work to understand Man's Individual Rights based on His Rational Nature. It is from these fundamental Truths that the ONLY proper function of a legitimate government is derived - The protection of Individual Rights.

Considering it my duty as an economics major, I took it upon myself to read this book, with little expectations as to its brilliance, and was completely swept away. Not only is Hayek extremely eloquent in articulating the case for free trade, he supports his arguments with facts (e.g. what was then going on in Nazi Germany) and with theory (e.g. why without even the historical evidence that we do have we must conclude that a centralized system cannot equally favor everyone).

Since it is my tendency to look at the 1 star reviews before making a 5 star one, I recognize that some people don't like Hayek because he doesn't recognize the great things about socialized medicine (like how a guy in Canada signed up for a CAT scan under his dog's name because animals are not covered under their highly efficient centralized health care...true story by the way) or the kind thoughts of socialist thinkers (please don't make me choose my selection of Marx quotes). But what Hayek does is present a prima facie case against socialism; before anyone can advocate socialism, they MUST address Hayek's arguments.

This is why I think before any socialist and libertarian face each other in a squabble, both must have read The Road to Serfdom so that they can hit on the applicable issues instead of babbling on about poverty statistics. Are you a socialist and disagree with Hayek? Fine, but read the book so that you know where your opponents stand. I really think that socialists think lovers of capitalism are greedy and have no ethics. But if you read our spokesman Hayek, you'll see why we think that the free market is actually BETTER for society.

Let's change the scope of the argument. Socialists should stop arguing about how some people are poor...yes, some people are poor...and demonstrate how a centralized system can make people BETTER than they would be under the free market system. How planning the systems of production would be more efficient and prosperous than under the system of competition. How giving all our freedoms to one entity would guarantee them for all. If you can effectively address these issues and the many more that Hayek brings up, we will soon see a blessed change in the current headache of debates on socialism.

Dr. Peck should have cut this book in half and sold it as two separate books. I liked the first half, but disliked the second. It's divided in 4 sections. Here's my 1/10 grade on each section:

DISCIPLINE: 7
LOVE: 8
GROWTH AND RELIGION: 4
GRACE: 2

As you can see, I believe the first two sections were much better than the last two sections. The book was getting interesting and then suddenly it took a sharp turn and went downhill after that.

PROS:
- Conversational writing style, although a bit long-winded at times.

- Several engrossing ancedotes about his patients, especially in the section called love.

- Each section is just a few pages, helping to make things flow.

CONS:
- Paragraphs are hard to digest: he often has enormous paragraphs that take up nearly the whole page.

- Peck's tough love is a bit much. The book begins: "Life is difficult." He goes on to describe how tough everything is, the importance of discipline, and not to be lazy, etc.... Personally, I don't see life as being such a monumental struggle. Maybe I'm lucky, but I felt that too often Peck looks at situations as the glass being half full. I suspect his world view came from working with patients who had problems. He listened to people complain all day. If I had that job, I might also conclude that life is difficult. However, I felt like Peck was a military man ordering me around.

- Too preachy. I have a degree in Religion, and perhaps because of that, I have a wider view of world religions than Peck. Although he occassionally mentions the Buddha, he is a strong Christian. There's nothing wrong with that, but I was expecting that this book would be less preachy. Some readers (like me) who expect this to be a secular book will be surprised by the religious turn it takes in Part 3.

- It's shocking at the bottom of page 175 (in my early edition) where he says he would have sex with his patient if he thought it would help her! It's not surprising that later Peck would admit to having had several extra-marital affairs. His wife of 40+ years divorced him a few years before his death. My point is that such statements in this book make me lose confidence in his judgment and make me question everything he writes.

- In the "Miracle of Evolution" section, he states that humanity is the top of evolution. This 19th century belief has been updated by most scientists in the 21st century. Humans are just on branch on the evolutionary tree, and not necessarily the highest branch. In a global nuclear war, mosquitoes may feel genetically superior to us because they will have survived.

- He argues we are the center of the universe. I don't buy it. He writes, "We live our lives in the eye of God, and not at the periphery but at the center of His vision, His concern." God didn't even put us in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, but on its periphery. Maybe Peck's right, but he didn't convince me.

WHO MIGHT LIKE IT: Traditional Christians will probably disagree with my review. Some Christians might love how Peck merges psychology and religion. I didn't.

CONCLUSION: I had high expectations for this book, having heard much about it. It was more disjointed than I expected. The turn it takes halfway through the book is particularly unexpected. I prefer books like "Your Best Life Now!" where the author is up front with the reader about his intentions to preach his religious beliefs to him. Peck sneaks it in there and it's a turnoff.

I have not read the entire book but I am on a spiritual journey and I found that this book is taking me there.I would love this book on tape which helps me to hear and remember it.I've always said I wanted peace and grace and there is a section on grace which I found that I was looking for. I want to buy the followup book on spiritual growth. I am going to try to find tapes also. The other book is......" Spiritual growth in an age of anxiety", and I think what better time then now,to discuss what is in this book. It is written by a well respected physician.

The Road Less Traveled is one of my favorite books of all time. Scott Peck gives a great perspective on life.
Beginning with the quote "life is difficult".
I have read almost all of Scott Peck's books and think he is amazingly talented.
A MUST read.
All the very best,
Sarah Radford
President Chic Gems, etc.

IT WAS A SUBSTITUTE BUT PROMPT DELIVERY SERVICE.
NOTHING ELSE TO SAY . HAVE NOT READ YET.

This is a great book for everyone!! Especially those who have had a hard life. I found great truths that have helped me overcome an abusive childhood.

I was assigned this book in an undergrad political science class. I began it and didn't finish it--I suppose because of immaturity. Thirty years later I decided to give it another try.
In short, this is one of the best novels I've read, and one of the few books that I want to re-read.

Accidentally picking this up at the library in the audio book section, I gave the first CD a listen and was hooked throughout all 18 CD's in this large, vast and powerful read.

All The King's Men was originally pulped in 1946 by Robert Penn Warren, and it is a tale about the corruption of a powerful man

I have to get really geeky here and talk about some pop TV for a second. The character Benjamin Linus on ABC's Lost is played by Michael Emerson is one of my favorite TV characters of all time.

I was pleased to find out that All The King's Men, the audio book version is read by none other than the Michael Emerson. And since the story is told in first person, Emerson becomes the central charaacter of the story, Jack Burden. There was a movie made recently based on this book, and Burden was played by Jude Law, I believe, and the movie tanked.

I'll tell you why it tanked, because Emerson didn't play Jack Burden. His voice and inflection are perfect and it would be hard to imagine no other as the character because Emerson embodies Burden so well, simply by audio. Imagine what he could do on the big screen.

That being said, let me tell you how awesome this book was. Coming at it from a point where I knew nothing of the story, it was a great trip into mind of Burden. Burden is a news reporter who, as a young man, gets hooked up with Willie Stark, a politician on the rise who begins his career as a straight shooter, someone even Lincoln would be proud of.

But as the story goes on, flashing back and forth from the past to the present, making the book feel timeless and move quickly despite its length, we find Stark turning into the thing we feared he would become most, a politician. Stark's rise and downfall are chronicled by Burden, who tells how his past and present life mix in and blend together with Starks, touching at all points.

Burden's thoughts and comments about life and the goings on in the story are often pessimistic and hopeless, and that's perhaps what this book does so well, in that it eventually saves Jack Burden but allows Stark to fall off the deep end, and not a page too late for either.

Warren can write southern dialect with the best of them: McCarthy, Faulkner, and the conversations in the book feel real and genuine. Nothing reads so good as some southern fried dialog.

This book is deep and touches on many aspects of life: parenthood, death, pride, love, loss of love, philosophy, history, and politics. The characters are singular, and I don't think we'll see another Jack Burden in literature for a long time--someone so callused on the outside but vulnerable as well, with quick wit, a lack of regard for any authority, and one who eventually admits he was wrong about everything.

I loved this book, and will read it again in the future. If you are a fan of audio books, you must do this one in your ears. I never experienced a better experience with a narrator than I did with Emerson's Burden. Pick it up, and enjoy.

I read the 1963 edition by Time Inc. This 600 page book is an incredible read, an extremely well written page turner, very visual writing with colorful chanracters that are so real and alive. The book is filled with intriguing events but so skillfully layered and woven with seamless transitions into monologues by the narrator about his reflections on life, history, good and evil, and many more. This is the best book I have read this year so far.

Knowing only that "Robert Penn Warren" was a famous author of some kind, I blindly plucked this book from the shelf of a local library. As I read - - which was sometimes feverish, and sometimes with some amount of irritation - - I did not pursue any reviews or advance information regarding the plot, the characters, or the author's language. That said, I formed my opinion based entirely on my own feelings, as a person living in the 21st century who is exposed to today's barrage of media, television, literature, and current events.

For me, the story of Willie Stark is quite secondary to that of Jack Burden. In ways, I barely noticed the "political" aspects to it, or even the supposed evolution of Willie Stark from a man of ideals to a dirty political operative (he was probably the very same person from start to finish). Jack, the storyteller, is a man in his mid-thirties who is generally disillusioned with the world. On rare occasion, he is excited and happy about something, but he - - as the primary character of the book - - is mostly sour, sarcastic, and patronizing. I was never sure whether to wish the best for him. I really wanted to feel positively about someone, and he was the obvious pick, but ultimately I decided that he could fall down an elevator shaft and make a life in the basement of the building, and I would be alright with the direction.

Over the course of a month, I picked up the book and put it down several times. If I were taken with the story, of course I would have cleared my calendar and given it the attention I felt it required - - which I share only to suggest that I do get carried away by novels. But this book just wasn't that book at all. Along with this, as I put down and picked up the book, I did encounter a special danger: I would have to retrace my steps a bit to remember where I was if I left it just two days ago, requiring that I thumb backwards 15 pages and re-read. A modern-day novel would let you do this more easily because they tend to thread events, character dialogue, and internal musings together more succinctly and coherently. In 10 pages, the modern-day novel might give the main character four minor challenges and connect that character multiple times in exchanges to other characters, while this 1946 novel in 10 pages will have only shared the musings of the main character about some unanticipated, and sometimes very uninteresting, thoughts about how a barn sticks up out of the mist, and how cows in the field see cars blazing down a highway.

Criticism aside, what this book does give a person today is an outlook of the world through the mind of someone (the author) who lived a thoughtful life over 50 years ago. And even the wordiness - - though dizzying, tiring, and frustrating at times - - is a refreshing change for the reader who mostly reads novels written in the past several years, ones that focus less on description and more on keeping a frenetic pace and sequence of activity. I still maintain that in no way is this the "the best book," or even comes close to such a categorization, but Warren's All The King's Men is an interesting read from the standpoint of its own acclaim, history, and position in the literary world. I guess it's what you'd call a "classic." If you have a goal of reading a classic novel, and can afford the time to read well over 600 pages (and sometimes reread some of those pages), All The King's Men is a respectable choice.

I put off reading this novel for almost twenty years from when it was first recommended to me for the simple reason that I dismissed as a "political" novel and, ergo, not of the first water. - How wrong can a prospective reader be?!? - To begin, this is not a "political" novel, per se, and the character of Willie Stark, as compared with the odyssey of Jack Burden, not very gripping. As another reviewer has mentioned, it is only political in the way that Oedipus Rex is political. What All The King's Men is, then, is a beautiful, hauntingly poetic, dark reflection on man's state in the world. It is an authentic American, modernist tragedy. And, like all great works of literature, it resonates in one's mind and heart long after the last page is read and the covers closed.

The other reviewers have covered the plots and subplots, so that there doesn't seem much to add save, that, for me, the most engrossing sections were Jack's accounts of his two journeys into the past, one to find "truth", the other to find "the facts" and his deeply poetic rendering of the development of his adolescent love for Anne Stanton, which comes as close to Proustian as anything else in literature.

I suppose I would go on to add a caveat here too. As I say, despite the book's somewhat pacific ending, the work is a tragedy, with the accompanying dark Weltanschauung inherent in an authentic tragedy. There are so many passages I could quote to exemplify this perspective to let the reader know what s/he is getting into here, but the best comes at the end of the fourth chapter, after Jack's first dive into the past:

"Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in that time learned that the world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but springs out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things. Your happy foot or your gay wing may have brushed it ever so lightly, but what happens always happens and there is the spider, bearded black and with his great faceted eyes glittering like mirrors in the sun, or like God's eye, and the fangs dripping."

In other words, beware of trying to trip the light fantastic through this powerful novel.

It was a well written story. Unfortunately, there were a ridiculous number of grammar and spelling errors as well as a couple incorrect facts that really devalued the book for me. I couldn't read 10 pages without seeing a mistake like "the the". I was especially disappointed by these errors since it was the special 30th Anniversary reprint of the book. I would have thought they would fix most of these mistakes. As a history teacher, the factual errors were even worse for me. He wrote that the American Revolution was also known as the Seven Years' War. That is incorrect. The Seven Years' War is another name for the French and Indian War which preceded the Amer. Rev. After reading the first 500 pages and getting so annoyed I finally bought it on tape and listened to the rest.

I loved this book when it first came out and am now watching the miniseries all over again. It is wonderful to read and behold. Many of the family's lore has been proven to be fiction but does it matter? It is a great book and wonderful idea for a story. It brought back the idea of tracing people's roots that is still with us today. A wonderful read.

anybody interested in American history or family this is the book to read. Hailey is a must read for eveybody.

I read this book on Kindle a couple of months ago. I remember watching the mini series as a kid but had never read the book. I'm not going to go into the literary aspects because that has been covered, in it's good and bad points already. I will say I'm glad I've read it. I won't consider it a completely accurate history lesson, but it does make a person think past normal boundaries. This book is formatted well for Kindle, it had no formatting issues. The fact I read it on Kindle was "handy" because I could look up tribal phrases in the dictionary, or wiki with little effort and go straight back to reading.

I love Roots and think the whole world should read it. It's an important and vital book about American history, family history, and triumph over hardship. I loved Roots the first time I read it twenty years ago, and I love it still, having just finished it yesterday, BUT...

1) If only Alex Haley hadn't plagiarized whole sections of the book (see Wikipedia's article on the author Harold Courlander)

2) If only Haley really HAD been related to Kunta Kinte (genealogists state he consciously perpetrated a hoax)

3) If only Juffure really WAS Haley's ancestral village (evidence suggests that the griot from modern Juffure with "memories" of Kunta Kinte's disappearance in 1767 was coached about what to "remember")

I found these fabrications depressing. And what's so sad is that I believe Haley had no need to lie and cheat, because he's really a top-notch storyteller.

This aside, though, I have a few other critical comments.

1) The book begins a slow descent into petering out after Kunta Kinte exits. The characters become increasingly wooden and one-dimensional. Kunta is great, Kizzy is good, Chicken George is fair, and everyone and almost everything after that is forgettable.

2) The book lauds having tons of children, mindlessly, and fails to criticize parents who have children and cannot provide for them. Haley makes it seem that having children and passing on the family name, no matter what horror the child risks getting subjected to, is the noblest of goals. I disagree! It sounds crass to say that slaves shouldn't have had children, but I hold all parents, slaves or not (rape victims being an exception), responsible when they knowingly bring children into a world of hell. (And Chicken George - a neglectful parent, to say the least - bringing 8 children into slavery? Nothing admirable there!)

If listening the RAH RAH motivational speeches helps you, you will love Og Mandino. Basically all of his books are pure emotional rally with very little logical advice. Some salespeople feel they need this to keep them pumped up and positive in the face of daily rejection. If this is you, then this is a 5 star book. If you actually want usable advice don't bother with the writings of Mandino. He gives no usable advice.

There are only so superlatives to describe the writings of Og Mandino. I have included 2 quotes below from his books. The first is similar to something I read by W. Clement Stone 35 years ago. Paraphrasing Stone, in every adversity, seek out the positive and focus your mind on that positive rather than the adversity.

I went around for months repeating in my mind, "find the best in every negative". 35 years later, I can say it still works.

Og Mandino quotes:

"Search for the seed of good in every adversity. Master that principle and you will own a precious shield that will guard you well through all the darkest valleys you must traverse. Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the mountaintop. So will you learn things in adversity that you would never have discovered without trouble. There is always a seed of good. Find it and prosper."

"Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress. The next time you are tempted to boast, just place your fist in a full pail of water, and when you remove it, the hole remaining will give you a correct measure of your importance."

Incidentally, if you go to Barnes & Noble looking for any of his books, you will find them in the "Religion" section.
The Greatest Salesman in the World

This is an incredible little book. The only criticism is that it is written in masculine terms and I didn't want to be repeating three times
a day that I am a wonderful salesman! So I typed it up myself with
language appropriate to my gender. In so saying, I believe that exercise
gels the scrolls in my consciousness even more so I have given it 5 stars
anyway. Make sure you do the repetitions for the full 30 days as repetition IS the first law of learning. If you don't repeat it, it
doesn't stay.

Time tested truths we all need written in very readable/enjoyable form. Anyone needing help in self discovery will benefit extrordinarily from Og Mandinos offering.

If you read through the book and follow the path of the ten scrolls your life will become so much better. While the scrolls outline a very basic foundation from which to build success, it is the basics that so many of us seem to neglect. I know, I've been neglecting them a long time.

Reading this book gives me a reassurance in my own personal beliefs on how one should be and act in this world. They may be the 10 scrolls to help you become the greatest salesman in the world but if you take them to heart and make them a part of you no matter what you do...you may become the greatest person in the world.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is feeling a little confused about how their life is going and wondering if what they are doing is right or not. If you are finding you are getting angry too fast or frustrated too easily and basically just lashing out for no reason, read just the ten scrolls and take them to heart. Reflect on how if you followed what they are saying would this make your life that much better. I know it is working for me, perhaps it can for you too. FIVE STAR READ!

I had no clue that Lewis had written a sci fi trilogy when I stumbled upon this one completely by random. I was in between books and it is certainly a quick read, so why not?

I am glad that I did. Lewis does a great job in telling a story and making sure that he finishes it up and ties up the loose ends. He created a world that was altogether plausible. The Oyarsa and the Hnau add a lot, and also tell a story about our own world.

As with anything Lewis writes, I can't help but look for a parable or some other deeper meaning as it relates to mankind. Dare I say that the Oyarsa are angels in Christian myth, that Hnau are the many different religions that exist? That accepted, then the story behind the story would show the predominance of a God, any God, and that all of the Hnau (Jewish, Christian, Muslim...) all should get a long as they are all ruled by the same god, or in this case Meldilorn?

I ramble, but either way Lewis created a story worth reading. I do want to read the next in the series to see where it goes, to see if the parable mentioned above does in fact play out even more. I would recommend, even though Lewis could have made it a bit more involved and in depth than it already was.

3.5 stars.

This is a must read for any Lewis fan and really for anybody. It is excellent and very though provoking.

This is one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books, I've read it twice and I still love it,to label it as mere scifi is an insult, it is a terrific book with a unique storyline that explores the nature of humanity and our role in universe. Wonderfully written, just great!

I originally read this book back in high school where my naive self was only familiar with Narnia and those wiley devils of the Screwtape Letters. I knew the man could do a twist of fantasy, but Lewis surprised me with this beginning book that could only be called a religious science fiction experience. Two scientists differing in their view on faith are transported to another, close planet to discover it was never how Earth imagined it. Lewis writes much more adult than he did with Narnia and is able to scrape real characters out of everyone. His gift for creating brand new worlds is retained and I was enchanted by the spiritual and secular aspects he put into what could also be simply a great adventure story.

Elwin Ransom, an Oxford don and an ardent philologist, is enjoying a solitary cross country ramble on his vacation when he encounters Professor Devine, a long-time acquaintance from his student days at Oxford, and Weston, a somewhat distracted and grumpy, reclusive individual. Weston is, in fact, a physicist who has secretly built a space craft in which he and Devine plan to return to Mars (Malacandra, in the native Martian populace's language) with nefarious ideas of plunder and planetary domination. As part of their plan, they drug and kidnap Ransom to take him along as a sacrificial peace offering to the native population.

On the face of it, a beautifully written Out of the Silent Planet has a simple classic sci-fi plot and can certainly be enjoyed at this level. But virtually every reader will recognize that Lewis' work probes far more deeply than that. His strongly held Christian beliefs, never far from that surface plot, are apparent in his criticism of human prejudice and greed. It is also clear that he holds extremely strong views against notions of eugenics and the then universally held belief in the natural supremacy of western white civilization as compared, for example, to aboriginal populations elsewhere in the world. Even though his allegorical tale goes so far as to include a version of angels and an archangel, the story never becomes preachy, odious or whiny.

Astute long-time readers of science fiction are always on the alert for errors of scientific fact. So Lewis may be mildly criticized for making a fundamental error in how gravity would work aboard a space craft but this certainly detracts in no way from the quality of his story. To the contrary, I thought he earned top marks and high praise for crafting, for example, a startlingly accurate description of the appearance of the sky in the transition zone from atmosphere to space at extremely high altitudes (at a time, of course, when space travel was at best a twinkle in scientists' eyes). I also noted a single quite astonishing comment that seemed to predict Einstein's work on cosmology, travel at light speed and relativity ... "But if the movement were faster still ... in the end, the moving thing would be in all places at once." His brief exposition on linguistics and the possibility of a universal syntactical structure of languages was also fascinating without being distracting or pedantic.

For fans of soft sci-fi, Out of the Silent Planet will provide a smorgasbord of delights - alien characters and personalities, philosophy, ethics, survival in a potentially hostile environment and descriptions of alien flora and fauna that are near poetic in their beauty and majesty. I'm looking forward to reading the next novels in his masterwork trilogy, "Voyage to Venus" and "That Hideous Strength".

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

I am a reader. I love reading classics, plays, all kinds of things. Yet, when people ask me what my *all time* favorite is, it is The Thorn Birds. When telling people about it, it seems kind of like a trashy novel, not real "literature". I can't describe it, it is just SO GOOD. The story is wonderful, more then just a love story. There is a web of amazingly rich characters that you end up caring about. Mary Carson is one of the best characters in the story, yet she is only in a fraction of the book. Luke O'Neil, Paddy, Fee, Justine, even Mrs. Smith the housekeeper are such well developed characters with their own sorrows and joys.
Another reviewer mentioned how it transports you to Australia. I totally agree. You can almost see the landscape, feel the heat, hear the sheep...
Honestly, whenever I need a pick me up because my own life is just too stressful and I want to escape, this is the first book I go too.

Read this book several years ago and enjoyed it immensly. A young woman falls in love with a kindly young priest and gradually gets him to fall in love with her. This book may raise a few eyebrows today with what has been going on in the church.

This is a wonderful book, although very long. Some of the descriptions are tedious and you look forward to more dialoge or action. Overall, a very beautiful tale.

Yes, the story between meggie and Ralph (a Catholic priest) is fascinating and intriguing. It is also quite moving and tearful. Unfortunately, I found the book full of meanderings, psycho-babbles, ruminations, and lengthy, tedious descriptions of persons and places. These definitely reduced my interest and absorption in the fine story. Actually, they cluttered it, forcing me to skim and skip.

The almost 700 pages would have been fine at 400-450. And the author's inability to write suspensefully and provoke my curiosity bothered me immensely. When the novel ended, all I could say was whewww! Finally! By then I had actually become very bored, especially since that part became a new story about Meggie's kids, which had little relationship to the main theme of the book. Had Meggie not had any children, I think the book would have been much better, cleaner.

I found The TV mini-series FAR SUPERIOR--it was tightly written, perfectly focused, devoid of clutter and babble, and full of tension, suspense, and touching scenes. DO SEE THE MINI-SERIES--you will not waste a moment, as you will through many of the book's plodding, sometimes unclear pages.

Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds is one of the most popular books written in recent years, but it is not a great book, a classic novel. The Guardian called it, "Australia's answer to Gone With the Wind," and it certainly has the epic sweep of that book and, in Meggie Cleary, a character to rival Scarlett O'Hara in iron-willed determination and love for the land. It is a book much like Thackery's Vanity Fair, a "book without a hero," and while Meggie bears some resemblance to Becky Sharp, she falls far short of the scheming self-interest of the latter character.

There are two things that keep The Thorn Birds from being a great book. The first is that it lacks the dramatic conclusion of great drama. The Hunchback of Norte Dame ends with Quasimodo seeing the two great loves of his life die within moments, one by his own hand. The place where the climax should have come to an end is at the point when Ralph, now Cardinal di Bricassart, comes to Drogheda and meets Dane. Fee and Meggie know the truth but will not tell him. McCullough teases us by saying that Anne and Luddie, the only two other people who know it, are coming to Drogheda as well. But what happens? Meggie and Cardinal Ralph nonchalantly go to bed together and the moment passes and the story moves on. Other scenes vie for this place in the book without much success.

The Thorn Birds is, at bottom, a book for women. Its central themes of love, forbidden and otherwise, and psychological self-analysis resonate with them. McCullough draws her women--Fee, Meggie, and Justine--with a clear and sharp brush. Her best character is the villainess, Mary Carson, whose decisions shape the book and whose ghost haunts it throughout. While perhaps not on a par with Dickens' Madame Defarge, she exudes evil; even her death is grotesque. McCullough's men, by comparison are mere representations: The perfect priest, the Australian sheep grazier, Frank, the angry young man, the brothers, as alike as peas in a pod, Paddy, the accepting father, Luke, the rough, ambitious personification of Gordon Gekko, and Dane, the perfect embodiment of male beauty. Even Cardinal Vittorio Scarbanza di Conti-Verchese is a mere stereotype of the kind of cardinal that controlled the Catholic Church in those days. We see him throughout the book stroking his various cats, as a benign Goldfinger. And then there is Ralph, of course, the combination of perfect man and perfect priest.

This is a book about suffering and death and religion. Rather than compare it to Gone with the Wind, a more fitting comparison would be to the bible, specifically the Old Testament. The God of Colleen McCullough is clearly God the Father, an avenging God who punishes and kills relentlessly--who tortures Job much as a small boy would pull the legs off a frog to see what happens. The fire matches the biblical flood, as does the killing of animals--sheep by the tens of thousands and rabbits by the millions. Why does McCullough have to kill the bunnies? Maybe it is a bit of realism, that in post WW II Australia the rabbit population was wiped out by myxomatosis, but is it really necessary to include this particular fact in the book? The human death toll in the book is what grieves us the most. The deaths far exceed the births and of the five births in the Cleary family, two die, one is maimed for life, one is psychologically warped and only one (Jims) has anything like a normal life. Of the two marriages, one is a disaster that ends in a de facto divorce and the other, at the end of the book, is McCullough's lame attempt at a happy ending. None of the Cleary boys get married--because they are shy around girls, or more likely because they have some sense of the fate that marriage would have in store for them..

But what utterly destroys the book is the death that occurs towards the end. It is stupid and senseless and comes upon us suddenly, like the deaths of the children in Jude the Obscure, who hang themselves, leaving behind the pathetic note, "We are too many." But Hardy paid for the unrelenting negativism in his novels (poor Tess!), and was so pilloried that he turned to poetry in his latter years. When we first read it we are stunned. It can't be; there must be some mistake. We go back and read the passage again. No, there is no mistake. We cry out in horror: WHY, COLLEEN, WHY THIS?! WHY NOT BOB OR JIMS OR FEE WHO WOULD WELCOME DEATH. WHY MUST IT BE THIS?? And them we calm down. It's only a novel. It isn't real. It is all imaginary. And we go on to finish the book.

The second limiting factor in the book is the meandering plot. McCullough does not seem to know where she is going with this book. Reading it is like wandering through a maze. Down one path--nope, better find another. For example, the book begins with the conflict between Fee, her son Frank and her husband Paddy. The hot-tempered Frank is unlike the other Cleary boys and we soon learn why. But where does this plot line go? Frank leaves to become a boxer and the next thing we know McCullough has him in prison for 30 years! When he does come back to Dongheha he is but a shell of his former self and spends his time puttering in the garden. Then the book seems to be about Fee and Paddy, but that line fizzles out too.

The one central unifying theme is the relationship between Meggie and Father Ralph. But instead of high tragedy, McCullough gives us a resigned Meggie and a Ralph who pines away even as he climbs the ladder of Catholic success.

In fairness to McCullough, it is not as though she doesn't warn us. The title, is taken from a bird that impales itself on a thorn and sings until it dies. This is life for Mcullough, to paraphrase Hobbes, "Nasty, Long and Brutish." But we have been warned and after all one does not read Shakesepeare's tragedies expecting a happy ending.

Finally, the book ends without hope. In Gone With the Wind (the movie anyway) we find Scarlett holding the land between her fingers, looking upward and uttering the words, "Tomorrow is another day.." But McCullough gives us no such hope. In the end Drogheda will be no more and we find Meggie resigned to this fate.

Does all of this mean that the book is not worth reading? Of course not. It is, to use a trite expression, "a damn good read." Women will love it; men will at least enjoy parts of it. It presents aspects of life--New Zealand, the Australian outback, the inner chambers of the Holy See--that none of us are likely to experience. Read it. Enjoy it as best you can. But realize before you do that you are about to descend in something akin to Dante's Inferno--and don't compare it to War and Peace.

Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, forever old as well as new, arrived in a timely manner and in factory new condition. Thank you. I give you a five star rating.
Earl Woodham

Cute book to add to my table of Christmas Stories. Will make a cute addition this Christmas.

I ordered 30 copies of this Dover Thrift Edition of A Christmas Carol and used them as stocking stuffers at work.

This is a great item for the price, lower than some greeting cards, and I suspect appreciated a tad more than the usual overflow of candy around at holiday time!

Everyone has their favorite version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Make this dramatic retelling yours. At about 2 hours, its perfect for listening in the car while running around during the holidays or on your MP3 player while putting up Christmas lights. I plan on listening to it every year from now on. Patrick Stewart gives voice to every character, including the narration, and gives the kind of performance which I have come to expect from an actor of his immense talents.

I saw this script produced at the Castle Museum in York during its first run. It's the most faithful adaptation I have ever seen of A Christmas Carol, which is one of my favourite novels.

Highly recommended.