Australia Books

This book will make you smile and laugh or you might stop for a moment with wonder at the words you read. You might read them again and smile even brighter because of the amazement the author arouses with his thoughts in you. This book is full of weird anecdotes, deep thoughts, most honest emotions and hope for every next step where life might take the author to.
Read this book and hold it dear! The chapters are short but give you 1000 things to think about. I just love it!

There's a simple reason why people like this book - it's honest. In a world full of fakes and wannabe's, The Midnight Specialist tells it like it is, in his own way. There's no hype, no imitation, just an open and honest account of a life most of us could only dream of. Not the life of yet another spoilt 20something Hollywood/rockstar, but a life well and truly lived; the life that somewhere inside all of us, we wished we were living, if only we had the stomach for it, if only we listened to our inner child more often, if only we didn't need 8 hours sleep a night.

Having been fortunate enough to meet and call the author a friend, I can honestly say this book is like a slice of Trevors brain in print. A place where time does not exist, with extreme highs and lows, poetry, religion, beautiful girls, constant ponderings and not an easy wage in sight. This work, as indeed the author himself, is due to become a cult classic.

Trevor Andrei gives us insights to the most intimate thoughts and moments of his life. We experience bike accidents and trips through OZ and what happens when you fall in love - in short how life tastes when you walk out there, not fearless but curious.

I love some of the stories! Some i don't quite get and some are just out of this world. All in all, to me it is a honest book from a guy who has never and will never rest. Thanks for some laughs and some smiles and some "aww-poor guy"s...

There is definitely a difference between the first two sections of this book, and the last two. The whole second half almost could have been its own book - it reads as more of a love story... compared with the first two sections, which are more of a collection of all things important and relevant to the author. It is packed with so much information, to read it like a novel would be losing out on the impact of each important insight. Overall, I loved it!

This very personal and honest story is an unusual one, sharing visions, poems,insights, adventures, love and friendship from the last 10 years. A young man travelling Australia, living in a backpacker hostel with people from all over the world who contribute to his process in various wonderful ways. If you ever travelled the world and /or your own inner planet, or want to do so, read this! Fearless, at times psychedelic - almost like a video clip with a rapid succession of thoughts, ideas, jokes, statements - often funny and sprinkled with amazing poems the story touches in unexpected ways. It proves that having the courage to be just who you are might not always be easy but very rewarding in the end!

This book is the essential book about Bali. I read it 26 years ago when I first went to Bali and it still ranks as thee book about Bali. If you wish to learn about the Balinese people, their culture and religion and beliefs I highly recommend this book. jim

If you only read one book on Bali, read this one. Believe me, I'm Balinese.

Miguel Covarrubias, and his wife Rose,who were Mexican, went to Bali twice, once in 1930 for several months and again in 1933 again for several months. The first time they stayed in Denpasar, the capital, and the second time in Ubud, where I live.

They stayed with Walter Spies in Ubud,who was an extraordinary German, who had been living there for years, and who totally absorbed Balinese culture. My mother worked for him. He taught the Covarrubias's a lot.

They then wrote their book. It is regarded as the bible and all subsequent books owe a lot to it. Some things have changed, of course, but only on the surface. We are very traditional, especially in the Ubud area. The book is an excellent introduction to our rich culture.

The book discusses family and village life, rice farming, our Bali-Hindu religion, ceremonies, history, drama, art and dance.

It's very readable and the photographs and line drawings are great.

I must confess this book is thick but hey!!! It's well worth reading about for those who want to understand a little about Balinese culture as well as it's lovely people. I found it very interesting since it covered almost everything about Bali, however the book was written before World War II and well I still think it's great to have a book that is still resourceful. Even though so much has changed with Bali over the decades this book will never die surely. This is a must and is essential for those who want to have a better understanding of Bali back before World War II and they can still relate it to the present. Nothing much has changed but a few things have altered. It was like stepping back in time when I read this book... I hope everyone will enjoy the book as much as I do too... great book to have...

This is by far the best book available if you want to know about the people of Bali - their unique lifestyle, religion, customs and beliefs. Written in the 1930's, it still holds true today. The classic black and white photos are worth the price alone. The Balinese people still live a magical life that is difficult for a westerner to comprehend, unless you read a book like this.

Mexican painter Miguel Covarrubias set sail for Bali in 1931 on an optimistic personal quest to discover, absorb, and chronicle Bali's traditional living culture. Buy into the romance and seduction of Covarrubias-driven by a feverish imagination-- inexorably pulled towards and teased by the lure of Bali, half a world away. Travel back sixty-four years in time to Bali's unspoiled natural vistas-a happy, peaceful. pristine retreat standing apart from a West mired in crippling economic depression and poised on the precipice of World War II. As a fellow artist on an island with three million artists-in-residence (creativity is considered both a religious and a natural activity on Bali), Covarrubias penetrated deeply into the spirit of the dance, theatre, music, decorative arts, and pastimes of Bali.
Embellished by 114 half-tone photos and 90 drawings by the author and other Balinese artists, this essential, still-relevant classic consists of twelve chapters on the Balinese people and their civilization in the 1930s. Accompanied by painter Walter Spies, Bali's most famous expatriate resident, they roamed the countryside together with eyes, ears, and canvasses wide open, observing the local life. Covarrubias's most notable writing describes the organization of the traditional Balinese village: the markets, social order, etiquette, language, caste system, the banjar, law and justice, the courts, the subak, rice culture, and the distribution of labor. This intimate, insider's foray into every nook and cranny of his own paradise produced key chapters on everyday family life in Bali: the house, cooking, costume and adornment, childbirth, childhood, adolescence, sexual customs, and marriage.
Covarrubias explored the place of the artist in Balinese life and the development and evolution of Balinese art, crafts, sculpture, and architecture. Drama and dance are important components of Balinese life: they come alive through the village orchestras, musical instruments, classical Legong, and the ancient shadow plays. Island of Bali unveils material on priests and religion, temples and feasts, offerings and exorcisms, the Balinese calendar, and the original Bali Aga people. Written from a day when primary forests reigned supreme and witch doctors wielded terrifying power, Covarrubias delves into the cult of the Barong and Rangda, black and white magic, folk medicine, the sacrifice of widows, and death and cremation. The Balinese still lead a magical, mystical, harmonious life that is difficult for Westerners to understand unless they read a profound work like Covarrubias's Island of Bali. With an artist's sensibility and a Bali-lover's eye, Covarrubias paints a complex nirvana with words and easel in this great literary achievement.

Findley is a very gifted writer, and his talent shines through in this book. "The Last of the Crazy People" is a stunning piece about a dysfunctional family. From the first page, Findley calculatingly begins to describe the family in such a way that holds the readers attention. Reading this book is like watching a car crash in slow motion. It is a creative and intriguing read.

This is Findley's first novel, written in 1967 and set in the mid-1960s. It takes place in a small town setting outside of Toronto, but could very well have been set in deepest Mississippi for all the southern goth elements that dominate this book. A family disintegrates through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy. Mother won't leave her room, Brother is consumed by alcohol, Father is powerless. The boy's best friends are his cats and the black housemaid he is most attached to. In true southern goth style, things unravel in horrible ways as the family members drift further apart over the course of what should be a magical summer for the typical 11-year-old. Darkness, decay, death, despair, and the opening of a young boy's eyes to the realities of the world. Emotionally powerful, this book is simply awesome. Highly recommended for southern goth fans.

This is one of Mr. Findley's finest works. The metaphorical imagry used to discribe us as mankind is graphic and haunting. I know that I'll never forget,"The Last Of The Crazy People".

Much of Findley's work revolves around upscale families with problems. The Last of the Crazy People is no exception. As seen through the eyes of the youngest child in the family, who is really the only one not yet corrupted by loss of innocence, the story is told with the accuracy that only a child's perception will grant. Beautifully written, this is yet another book by Timothy Findley that i have loved.

Timothy Findley's first novel is a powerfully shocking read full of characters who reach out to the reader. Set in Ontario in 1964, the main character is an 11 year old boy, Hooker Winslow, living within a dysfunctional family. Findley holds your attention while you identify with this young man trying to learn about the problems in his family--but no one will tell him the truth. Not his distanced father who speaks to no one except his own spinster sister Rosetta who lives FOR her brother. Not his mother, the "crazy" Jessica who no longer wants to be a mother. Sometimes his drunken brother Gil. And the maid, Iris, tries to help him--but the truth is never within his grasp. The ending is breath-taking. Read this novel and you'll become a Findley fan.

since mid 80s i have been a big admirer of Bowery..he was always the most brilliant thing in FACE or ID magazine. This book is everything one needs to know and have about him. Must for disco historians !

Leigh is a genious on several arts. Clothes Designer, make-up artist, hostes, actor, performer, a MIND on the London Scene. This book is a perfect image memorablia, but not enough. Sorry my ridiculous english If someone loves Leigh Bowery too, please drop me a line. Danilo

Special man. Special book. i will forever be inspired by the delicious pages in this picture book that could change your life.

it did mine.

Beautiful job from start to finish. Highlights include the collages of stills from the films of Charles Atlas, the interview with Nicola Bateman, and Leigh's tres sexy postcards. Comprehensive, revealing the many layers of his greatness, and ever-reminding us of our miserable loss.

After the disappointing bio by Sue Tilley, Leigh Bowery can finally wink at us down here at earth. This book gives a great view on his work, throughout the eighties and nineties. Leigh was a chameleon in ideas and appearances. Allthough some of his looks were almost frightening, looking trhough the pages of this book one cannot escape from his originality and creativity. Leigh lived too short to get acknowledged for his ideas. Instead designers like Westwood, Gaultier and van Beirendonck use his ideas. But as Leigh claimed during his life: "Even my ideas filter through. The publics idea of beauty is fed to them." He fed them with something else. Thanx for that.

Bamber Delver, Amsterdam - the Netherlands journalist/writer (1984; Bowery at Farell House) website under construction with Bowery-department a.o. interview, articles, unknown pics

Having been a collector, affectionate reader, and on-the-field user of Lonely Planet guidebooks during my numberless and continuous travels, I can indeed witness that this one is one of the best. Some guidebooks try to cover too much, e.g. all of West Africa or all of Central Asia, and don't do the job so well (inevitable and still better than carrying one book for each country, but to the detriment of the quality). Another common problem, is the author's favourable bias towards the country she or he is covering, as if it were the most marvelous place on Earth - I think here of the LP guidebook to Libya. In other books still, some regions are covered more in-depth than others: the Indonesia guidebook only has seven pages on East Timor, which would in fact deserve a whole chapter if not a whole book on its own ! Instead, in covering the fascinating land of Papua New Guinea, this author has done an excellent job, and not much else really needs to be added: this is indeed the Lonely Planet standard, that is to say, an excellent standard. For those who may not be familiar with it, this means excellent, up-to-date, accurate coverage of all areas of the country, with information (primary basic facts as well as further data for perfectionists) about accommodation, getting around, eating, entertainment, etc. Despite the vastity of this land and the difficulty of getting to the most remote areas, the author has managed it. The chapters on history and culture, especially in this guidebook, I find to be extremely well-written and researched. This one is indeed an excellent tool not only for the traveller but also for the armchair traveller who may wish to know more about PNG without necessarily going. It is extremely enjoyable and pleasant to read, thus combining the unrivalled qualities of a guidebook from Lonely Planet, with great information and facts about the mysterious land of Papua New Guinea.

And the only one worth carrying for independent, budget travellers, I might add.
While this book was never perfect, and I would only have rated it 4 stars even when it was brand new (because its coverage of certain areas is really sketchy, and it curiously ignores some long-established budget places to stay), the new "PNG & Solomon Islands" guide that was published in 2005 to replace it is so much worse that it makes this guide seem 5*+ in comparision.
While the new guide is almost totally written for those going to PNG to stay in ultra-expensive resorts and see the country on guided tours, this 1998 edition still has the usual, more backpacker-oriented style many readers expect from LP guides. It will tell you about budget places to stay, remote areas to explore, and in general give you ideas on getting off the beaten track and experience some of the best PNG has to offer on your own.
Of course you will find that prices have risen considerably in the past years, but once in PNG, you will quickly figure out quite how much (they are up 2-3 times in Kina terms, which means much less an increase in foreign currency).
There are also a few new (mostly upmarket) places to stay now, and some shipping routes have changed (even since the 2005 edition!).
So if you are obsessed with having the latest available information in your guide, you may also want to buy the new edition in addition to this one.
I have both, but if I had to pick only one to carry along on my next trip to PNG, I would definitely take this one.

Even though this edition is already some years old it is still THE guide for independent traveling in this awesome country.

I was traveling in 2000 for about 8 weeks in PNG and found the book a real help for getting around in a country that is far away from being touristy. Whether you are looking for a bus stop, the next spots for hiking or diving, hotel information or information on culture and religion this book has it all in detail.

Especially in this kind of less developed country every bit and piece of information in this book is worth every cent you spent for it.

We traveled to Mt. Hagen and Port Moresby last March for the first time. What a great and beautiful country, and what a perfect travel guide to orient you. While this book is nice enough to have on the shelf, ours is worn from use... and usefulness. As a bonus, it's also well-written and a great book to read!

Lonely Planet has again done a superb job combining art, graphics, maps and information in exactly the right proportions. There are a collection of excellent color and black & white photos and graphics. The history and cultural background is extensive owing to the three experienced traveler-writers. They make great use of side-bars to highlight special features and information (a trade mark of most Lonely Planet materials).

All the regions are treated pretty equally and include useful maps that otherwise would be tough to find anywhere.

If you could only buy one book in preparation for your trip, you would not have any problem making this your "Bible". It is also a great size at 5 x 7.25 x 5/8's inches and printed on high quality paper.

I will always look to Lonely Planet as my first choice in travel books.

Having spent over 30 days travelling around N. Guinea I found this book to be heaven sent. From the Highlands to the Sepik or Lae to Madang all information re: lodging, transportation,& places to see were correct and found as described in the guide. I refuse to travel abroad without my first buying the LONELY PLANET guide to help plan my trip in that country. Jerry Silverman silverj@nical.com Dobbs Ferry, New York USA

This book is a great way to introduce a child to the idea that 'pretend'can be part of a story, at least as much as real events can. Every second opening allows the reader to become part of the fantasy land inhabited by the children in the story. The illustrations are beautifully done and the rhythm of the rhyming text engages younger children as well as older. Both of my children (ages three and six) find aspects of this book entertaining and interesting. Very highly recommended for pre-schoolers to infants school age children!

This book is a favourite of both me and my two year old son. The beautiful, detailed pictures capture the essence of summer and the magic of being a child, when any activity can be transformed by imagination into something more. Many aspects of beach life are shown, from playing in the surf, to wading in rockpools, to a moonlight bonfire. The verse flows well and complements the pictures, although I would agree with the previous reviewer that the illustrations are the highlight. I love all of Alison Lester's books, but I would rate this one as the best.

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A rhyming story line in a child's picture book seldom works well. They often seem so contrived and sometimes downright corny.

Not so in Alison Lester's << Magic Beach >>. This book deserves the status of a classic in contemporary children's literature. In fact, the book is regularly listed in the Best Seller lists in Australia, where the author resides. ...

All children love the freedom and fun of a trip to the beach. Alison transports us to one of the childhood's favourite playground, that place where the land meets the sea. The real joys of beachside fun are joined with pleasurable and harmless seaside fantasies.

On alternate pages, we are taken from beautiful realities to even more captivating fantasies. We go from a scene with a sparkling sea to an exciting world where we can ride waves pretending they are "wild white horses". We go from sandcastle building to a land of fire breathing dragons. We explore rock-pools and their magic world of starfish and crabs, and then go to an evenmore magic Kingdom where we can ride seahorses.

The beach is still magic when it's a cloudy and gray day, our imaginations will help us discovered a treasure chest. We can go boating in the safety of bay, and then let the wind and our fantasies take us to the "edge of the world".

We fish and laze on the jetty, and in our daydreams, we catch a monstrous shark.

It is now evening-time, we are toasting marshmallows around the glowing fire, and in the shadows, there may be smugglers hauling in crate-loads of booty.

It's time for bed, and to the sounds of the ocean, we drift off to sleep on the evening tide.

This is a fabulous book which has universal and popular appeal. Let's see if we can get it back on the publisher's lists in the US. It deserves the widest audience possible.

Not O/P in Australia - available in many book shops.

This is a lovely book. It depicts various activities throughout the day at the beach, from building sand castles falling asleep at night within sound of the ocean.

Each double page describes a time and activity (the verse is a little bit inferior to the pics). The subsequent double page has an imagined fantasy activity.

I give this 5 stars for the illustrations, 4 for the text.

There is good reason to rejoice in the States, for it has not been possible to purchase new copies of this incredibly imaginative and lyrical picture book for years. One of my Top 20 during my years of running the childcare center, MAGIC BEACH exudes salt, sand, seaweed, and shells, as it bounces back and forth between the real and imagined adventures of a buoyant cast of young characters. Australia's Alison Lester has done some great illustrating over the past 25 years. This is the best of the best.

This is a very good read. For anyone interested in history, interested in learning about a remarkable woman, interested in just good writing, try this book. Lanyon covers it all including Malinche's seminal importance to Mexican history. The author also explores the development of Malinche as traitor, an idea that many are now taking another look at. It began in the 1800's with an elitist nationalist movement that needed a scapegoat to rally round. At any rate, Malinche's life is one that even the most jaded can marvel at.

For a brief moment in the 16th century, a teenage slave was the most influential woman in the world. Malinche, to use one of her many names, was the translator and go-between in perhaps the pivotal cultural drama of the last millennium - the moment when the Old World represented by Hernan Cortes, conquered the New World in the form of Montezuma's Mexico.

Anna Lanyon, an Australian backpacker, stumbled onto the story of Malinche while travelling in Mexico in the 1970s. Intrigued, she returned home, studied Spanish and Portugese to literary translation level, and revisited Mexico in search of this enigmatic woman.

So few are the clues, and often so contradictory, that Lanyon works like an archeologist with a soft-haired brush to bring Malinche's life into relief from its bedrock of myth.

In official Mexican history, Malinche is the "betrayer". Her name forms the root of a modern-day word for traitor. Lanyon finds a teenager blessed with intelligence, intuition and a sharp instinct for survival. Her options were few. Given as a sexual slave to the conquistadors, Malinche became Cortes's concubine, adviser, and mother of his first child. She died in obscurity, probably before she was 30.

But those close to her admired her. Lanyon makes the point often forgotten in facile renderings of the conquest: to vast numbers of people in what now is Mexico, Montezuma's "Aztecs" (more accurately, the Culua-Mexicans) were the feared and hated enemy. Malinche was therefore not a betrayer so much as a warrior, within her own context. But even more than that, she was a woman, condemned to slavery as a child, "assigned" to alien men when not yet 20, who simply did the best she could.

While the full personality of Malinche may be irretrievable from what history has left us, Lanyon does great work in debunking many of the myths about her and in exploring how national myths come about. And tantalisingly an impression emerges of this accidental figure of history: a woman we would like to have known, a woman from the lowest rungs who took a hand, for better or worse, in changing the world.

In a world of information technology and instant gratification, I admit I skim over books to grasp only the information I need in the least amount of time. In looking for information on Malinche, I didn't think that I was interested in reading about the author's journey in piecing the puzzle together. I just wanted her to get to the point!

I was so wrong! Beautiful story, priceless information, and a rare balance of sensitivity to the subject while maintaining objectivity.

Highly recommended, especially to Latina women.

Thank you, Ms. Lanyon, for your priceless contribution to history.

Not only was it great to find a book on Malinche, but also a book that looks at her in a light other than as the evil betrayer we all thought she was. I started the book thinking "How could she have done that?" and ended up feeling sorry for her predicament in life. Or at least understanding why she made the choices she did. This book wasn't just a defense of her actions, but it explained why she became the enemy she has become and who and why made her that way. She was used while she was alive for political purposes and she was manipulated and used for political purposes hundreds of years after her death also.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I have since bought several copies for friends and family members. It is a wonderful look at the way that society views one of the most important women in the Americas in the past 500 years. People are quick to judge her as a traitor or whore, but after reading more about her life as a slave and the conditions around her, I feel that she was an incredible survivor who became the mother of a new generation of people. This book which chronicles Anna Lanyon's journey through Mexico to discover who Malinche was, inspired me to learn more about the Conquest and Mexico's history, as well as more about who the flesh and blood woman "Malinche" might have been. I have since read, "La Malinche in Mexican Literature - From History to Myth", and "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico" by Bernal Diaz. I recommend it highly.

Read your typical history book covering Chinese history and you'll get a very distinct picture of the Jurchens and Manchus--about their conquest of china, the corruption of the Qing government (as if no other dynasty had corruption), of the power-hungry Aisio-gioro Nurgaci, founder of the Qing dynasty, and their alien, steppe-nomadic ways. Most Chinese history books have little good or substantive to say about this north-east Asian culture whose term for their religious priesthood was adopted by the West, "Shaman" (Chinese, "saman").

This book takes all that mythology and anti-Manchu rehtoric and blasts it to pieces with a compelling story of a people who have rarely been studied objectively and as a culture separate from the Mongols and Chinese. Nurgaci was not the man of the myths we've heard and never called himself Emperor. In fact for most of his life his title was "beile of the Jianzhou Jurchens". He was a great lord and chieftain of his lineage, but not even an autocrat in his authority, ruling jointly with his brother, Surgaci, for many years.

Besides the myths about Nuragi, many cultural myths are also dispelled. One major one is the assumption that the Manchus were nomads with a steppe culture analogous to the Mongol culture. This book explains how and why this assumption is wrong and is essential to anyone who wants to know the real Manchu people.

I'm only 3 chapters into the book and already know I need to reread it. there's a lot of information for the student of Jurchen and Manchu history!

WELL DONE!!

I read this book after Evelyn Rawski's "The Last Emperors" and it did answer & clarified a lot questions I had with regards to the Manchus and how they were like before entering China proper. The chapter on Nurhachi was good as was the section on the inevitable power struggle between Cixi and Guangxu (my only wish that this was elaborated further).
Crossley's book is highly recommended for both casual & serious historians alike. My suggestion is to read this first before Rawski's "The Last Emperors"

I have read a more recent book Evelyn Rawski's "The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions " in which she discusses the context between her book and "The Manchus". The two books are probably quite similar but I think that Rawski's book would contain much more undisclosed material.
I have decided not to change the rating on this book in the interest of fair play.

I visited to pick up the paperback of this book, and saw this perplexing comment below. This book and The Last Emperor are apples and oranges. This is a popular book (I got my original copy from History Book Club) and intended for reader's with a general interest, or maybe beginning historians. The book by Evelyn S. Rawski is an academic title, very thorough and erudite. But also the books are not on the same subject. Rawski is about the Manchu emperors, their courts and palaces. The Manchus is much more general. Please do not get confused into thinking that these two books are on the same subject.

It's funny to note that at many times the Qing dynasty faced many of the same problems that we see today: overpopulation, government corruption, war against drugs. So much of what we think of as Chinese is also Manchu and was introduced rather recently. Well writen and clear all the way through.

A well written and researched true story. Many, who have grown up after the holocaust, will find it hard to imagine what people went through only a generation ago . Diane was fortunate enough to have many members of her extended family survive (though they have scattered around the world in their effort to do so) and we are fortunate she has written the story of their survival. Readers that are fearful of books about the holocaust that have gruesome details can easily read the book as it is more a book about survival.

Excellent account of life in pre-WW2 Poland and the devastating years of the war itself. What is so remarkable is that the survival rate of this family was comparatively high compared to other Holocaust stories - mostly as a result of a family that saw the terror coming, and fleeing outside of the eventual jackboot sphere, with Diana's immediate family living precarious daily lives through their sheer wits in Nazi occupied Poland. How remarkably easy reflect our own lives against these - just to be grateful and marvel at the human spirit, read and be grateful.

I absolutely loved "Mosaic: A Chronicle of 5 Generations". I have read many Holocaust memoirs & oral histories, but none have moved me as Diane Armstrong's book has.

The strength of "Mosaic" is it's breadth and it's protagonists, the author's family. The central family, that of Daniel & Lieba Baldinger & their 11 children is augmented by cousins on the maternal side (the Spira's) as well as the family of Ms. Armstrong's mother, the Bratters. Although Poland is the setting for the first 30 years or so, as WWII beckons the scope becomes the entire continent of Europe as the now-adult children of Daniel & Lieba pursue their lives.

The majority of the family is caught in Nazi-controlled Poland & thru various ruses attempts to escape being deported to the death camps. These are the most thrilling sections of "Mosaic" because Ms. Armstrong's writing is so vivid that the reader can feel the never-ending fear that she & her family lived with for years. While she & her parents live as Catholics in a small Polish village, her aunt & young cousins are standing behind a wardrobe for days at a time in Krakow; we experience both types of anxiety as well as many others as the author recounts the many ruses various family members undertook to survive.

There were family members outside of Poland during WWII as well. With 2 uncles in France, another uncle who moved his family from Belgium thru Spain to finally end in Rio de Janeiro & various aunts & cousins everywhere from Andorra to Tel Aviv the reader is treated to a kaleidoscope of war experiences. The post-war years & family diaspora is dealt with in detail also.

What makes "Mosaic" especially memorable for me is that nobody is a "hero" or does "historic deeds" at any point in the book. While most Holocaust memoirs are by individuals who somehow stood out from the crowd, this account is of the members of that crowd, the folks who by simply surviving without compromising themselves became heroes. It is a marvelous reminder that everyone has a story worth telling.

The final chapter, in which Diane Armstrong & her daughter Justine return to Poland & reunite with the priest who befriended & helped her family shines with joy & compassion. I truly hope that Father Roman Soszynski had the opportunity to read this book. I hope that you will read it as well.

First i'd like to thank Ms. Armstrong for writing such a wonderful and powerful book. I could really relate to it and i'm sure many readers have as well. Ms. Armstrong writes so well that it is never a struggle to keep track of the abundance of family members, which can sometimes turn a book sour. Her chronicle of her family will make you ponder about your past. I HIGHLY recommend it! It is a stunning read.

Gripping, exciting, and suspenseful reading. Great factual writing with immense feeling. Diane Armstrong took me back to my own childhood. I lost my then nineteen-year-old sister as well as grand parents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends from school to the holocaust. It was painful as well as joyous to read. The book brought back memories and filled in some necessary gaps from my own past. A reader of a book which I wrote sent me MOSAIC all the way from Australia to the USA. I am very grateful to her. This book encompasses five generations of the author's families including detailed explanations of Jewish traditions then and now. For those of you who escaped the holocaust, you will be able to relate with it. For all others, it will be an eye-opening experience.

We recently visited New Zealand and searched at each venue for books that capture the magnificent landscape. Although there are many beautiful books, this is the best. We found it at the Te Papa museum. It has won a gold award. The feature I like best - apart from the photography itself - is that the book is divided into sections according to the type of landscape - coastline, lowlands, mountains etc, and does justice to each.

This is a simply beautiful book of photographs. Apse's custom-built medium-format cameras and his eye for composition and lighting have produced a collection that distills the essence of New Zealand's beautiful "Four Seasons in a Day" landscapes.

I just returned from 3-weeks in New Zealand and I must have looked at 30 NZ published photo albums before I left, settling on "New Zealand Landscapes." The US price for this NZ published book is a little steep, but it beats the pants off anything else I saw.

This is the first time that I have ever written a review but I feel that I must in order repay what Mr. Apse has provided me.

This book is my favorite collection of photographs, period. The photographs are technically perfect and do justice to a landscape that itself is almost indescribable. Whenever I pick up this book, I know that I'll be sacrificing an hour because I just cannot put it down.

Thank you Mr. Apse.

I am an amateur photographer who just returned from an extended vacation in New Zealand. I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect scenic picture book to take home as a souviner, and I must say that this one was absolutely the best! Andris Apse is an amazing photographer - his images of the New Zealand country and coastal areas are incredibly well composed. The lighting, the scope, the sheer beauty of it all..... it's difficult to put into words. The price for this title in the US is well worth it. If you are able, definitely get your hands on a copy. And if you want to have a look at more of his stuff, visit his website.

Even if you've never been to New Zealand, I highly recommend this title as a thoroughly enjoyable work of art!

I just received this as a gift. It's filled with some amazing shots all over New Zealand and some nearby islands. Some of the photos do not even look real they are so picture perfect. I love his use of light in the photos as well. Only thing better will be getting to go there. :-)