UK Books

The book is an excellent source of information if you have pets or are in the pet industry.

As a caretaker of six cats and a dog, I have used Bach Remedies for years with my animals but I've always had to refer to books focusing on the use of the remedies with humans. This book has come to my rescue and I especially like that there are separate chapters on cats and dogs. There is also a separate chapter on use of the remedies wih horses.

The best feature of the book is the second chapter "Using the remedies" where the authors spell out the animal behaviors that can indicate a need for each of the 38 remedies. For example, Crab Apple is the remedy for cleansing and is indicated for a animal who does excessive grooming or chews on its fur or feathers.

The only negative aspect for me, as an American, is the very British slant in the resources lists and in the case studies. However, that is a small complaint in the overall usefulness of this title.

This book has great organization which groups remedies into categories with similar properties. It teaches, quizes, reviews and provides a wonderful enthusiasm for learning more about the Bach flower essences. I have read many books on the topic and this one is one of the best for anyone who is a serious student of these wonderful life tools.

I work professionally with Bach Flower Essences, so I keep up to date with all the books that are published. I've just finished going through the Bach Remedies Workbook and I'm bowled over by it. It's a really fresh approach. Most writers just list what each remedy is for, but Ball makes every essence come alive by making you think about it and helping you see its relevance to your own life. This is a book all about empowerment, and comes highly recommended, not least by the Bach Centre which has (according to a friend of mine) made it the main text for its distance learning course.

This is a most comprehensive history of Bentley, the company and the cars. Unique here are the insights into the inner workings of the company provided by the author's extensive research.

The focus is on racing, which was the lifeblood of Bentley. Business and financial details, engineering, design and marketing are also extensively covered.

The book is profusely illustrated with original black and white photos, engineering drawings, blueprints, cutaways and racing scenes. There is also a beautiful section of color plates.

For the Bentley enthusiast this book is an essential. The organization is superb and the depth of coverage is excellent. It is a true delight.

This is it. If you are researching a prewar Bentley, you must have this one. It lists all chassis numbers and first owners. Many very good photos.

This book has a similar philosophy and arrangement by cultural conditions as Penelope Hobhouse's Natural Planting. While Hobhouse looks to gardens around the (temperate, Western) world, this book is all based on Beth Chatto's garden. But that's enough, as these are the large and varied display gardens at her retail and commercial nursery. The gardens are set in Essex, an area of England with harsher conditions (drier year-round, with a cold winter) than most of the country, and thus more like that of much of North America. While the book doesn't have a big alphabetical plant reference in the back, Chatto does have a few pages on each of many of her favorite genera. All of Chatto's books are worth purchasing if they match your local conditions (e.g., The Damp Garden, The Dry Garden).
http://www.woodedpaths.blogspot.com/

Unlike many gardening books, this book assumes a solid knowledge of gardening and has chapters on various types of gardens(shade, dry, open walks etc.). I appreciate that that many of the plants are less well-known, making the AHS Encyclopedia a good book to keep nearby while you read this. Has some great ideas for both plant and design choices.

This book is a wonderful description of how the Seichelles were 50 years ago. It tells the ultimate (real) adventure of a man who had the strenght to change completely his life, and decided to live remote somewhere in the Indian Ocean. This is a story which will carry You in a world apart, and that it will not be any more. It makes you think of what and how much we have lost in our day after day rat race.
Read and escape for a while. Buy as many copies as You can and make it read to your children before it is too late for them.

This book is an absolute blinder. For any body like myself who is interested in diving or travel it will enthraul, for anybody else just the mere excitement of the story and the histerical situations a bunch of half naked Sechelian men and one very confused westerner can get into will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. You may be interested to know that "Beyond The Reefs" is infact a double book, also containing my favourite of his "Sharks For Sale". Some of the things in here like being puled along side a hooked 30 foot female great white have to be read to be believed. As I said this book is fantastic and if youv'e ever read something like the beach then this is sure if only superficialy to appeal. ORDER A COPY NOW! INFACT ORDER TWO OR THREE!

Well written and entertaining.The story line was believeable and painted an accurate picture of small town Ireland and the interactions between locals and outsiders.I'm eagerly awaiting Ms Greaney's next book.

An excellent insight to the contradictions between village life and modern life in Ireland. The author makes very relevant references to those "good citizens" in Ireland - and in small towns in general - who try too hard to do (what they think is) the right thing. It's a good read for Irish Americans who have yet to see just how much Ireland has changed in recent years.

Light entertainment's most priapic juggernaut takes a break from "having it off" with "top birds" (this could be a form of shagging, but only The Rik Mayall knows for sure.) and amusing billions to the point of self-mortification to bestow upon the reading public this memoir (all of which is totally true, obviously), which makes all others before it look like the most over-used birdcage lining by comparison. For mere mortals such as we to even begin to fathom the workings of comedic ultragenius, this is your first and last step.

The Rik Mayall is great (anyone with any sense knows that) and this book is proof. Although it can at times seem as though the Rik Mayall is ranting and confused, I have come to realize it is only because I cannot, as I am not the Rik Mayall (there can only be one), fully understand the true and perfect genius that the Rik Mayall embodies and expresses in this brilliant autobiography. If you have ever enjoyed Bottom and/or The Young Ones, you will love Bigger than Hitler, Better Than Christ. Rik Mayall is sex. Oh, and there's loads of pictures, too (which is awesome).

I am completely delighted with "The Little Guides" series. The format is extremely user friendly, and each guide is packed with useful and interesting information. I enjoy reading them, but my 6 year old daughter gives them the most use. While the guides are written at an adult level, there is plenty that she can read and understand. I currently own "Sharks," "Birds," "Mammals," "Space," "Whales," and "Flowers."

"Birds" contains two parts, the first covering the basics of birds, bird behavior, and bird and human interaction. Part two then gives information on about 250 different species of birds. The guide is richly illustrated and each entry contains information on the bird characteristics, feeding, reproduction, and habitat. This is a great book for car rides, having the children spot a bird and look it up in this guide.

This guide is packed with useful information, and is a great resource of adults as well as children!

Informative Read ........Highly Recommended ..... 5 stars



The Little Guides: Birds is a superb choice for those who have an interest in the birds who share our world. I found the portions devoted to bird behavior, finding food and habitat are of particular use to the reader who would like to the provide birds a place to live and prosper in their own back yard.

The work is a good addition to the home and personal library as well as the high school biology department library. Middle grade readers will use the edition with some guidance from parents, teachers, scout leaders and the like.

Enjoyed the read, happy to recommend.

Reviewed by: molly martin
20+ years California classroom teacher

There are literally hundreds of Bird Books on the shelves of Bookshops these days. Why do we need so many? Well we don't really, apart, that is, for the fact that printing techniques, particularly colour ones, have changed so dramatically that photographs virtually leap off the page at you. For example, a Robin looks the same now as it did a hundred years ago, so the bird book I had thirty, or even twenty years ago should depict the Robin in exactly the same way. Well hardly, as I said above printing has changed and the advance of the camera is phenomenal.

What used to be `stock or library photographs,' appearing in the same format in book after book have now been superseded by new and vibrant photographs of close-ups of birds, both nesting on the wing and in places that were inaccessible to any kind of successful camera work, just a few years ago.

This book is both comprehensive and easy to read and of course the text is backed up by wonderful photographs of British birds in all kinds of situations. Although it is a reference book, it is also a book that you can actually read and enjoy. It covers the birds species by species, in such detail that it practically tells you what they have for breakfast. Joking apart it virtually does just that.

Much more than a species identification and certainly not one to take out in the field with you. There are lots of other books that serve that purpose very well. This book is a book to savour (no pun intended). A book for the fireside, when the wind is whistling around the chimney pots.

I just bought this books for a extremely discriminating birder and find that it's going to be difficult for me, a mere enthusiastic ignoramus of a North American nature enthusiast, to hand over to the lucky recipient. The authors have assembled an impressive array of photography, art and artefacts relating to British birds, but this visual array is surpassed by an information-rich and very readable text. They have collected the most recent scientific and environmental data on each family of birds inhabiting Britain and combined it with well-chosen summaries of the folklore and popular attitudes relating to these creatures. As I say, not just for those dwelling on the off-Continent island, but for anyone who cares about birds anywhere and who cares about English speaking culture, from Shakespeare to those currently shaking their fists at the masses of starlings overflying North America.

While most educators and textbooks in the US would have us believe the polarization of oppression and race along lines of skin pigmentation is the natural, inherent, and historical condition of ethnic interaction, Dooley's book suggests otherwhise. _Black and Green_ looks at the common link forged by oppression and the struggle for liberation between white Irish and black Americans since the 1800s.

Dooley examines the political, social, and ideological connections between the civil rights struggle in Ireland and America. His analysis results in a picture of reciprocal interchange with both sides influencing, shaping, and supporting the other. The end result is that this "other" demarcated through pigmentation was hardly an "other" during the historical moment. Angela Davis and Bernadette McAliskey support each other while in prison. When McAliskey later receives the keys to the city of New York for her work in Ireland, she gives them to the Black Panther Party. Frederick Douglas and O'Connell heavily influence each other's political thought and speak out in support of each other's cause. Marcus Garvey claims the color scheme of his movement reflects the struggle of various liberation moments of different races all over the world, including the Irish (Red for the reds of the world, green for the Irish struggle, and black for the African American, or, as he puts it at the time, the "Negro struggle." )

Dooley's writing is lucid, engaging, and often narrative. As his innovative and perhaps contentious claims demand, Dooley's research is heavily documumented, often cites primary sources, and features hundreds of foot notes at the book's end. Educators and researchers may use this book with the confidence that they can ascertain with some degree of certainty the primary sources from which Dooley's arguments arise. Further, Dooley's writing is eminently accessible and multi-layered. I have used sections of chapters in my middle school classroom in the Bronx and cited Dooley extensively in papers for graduate school. _Black and Green_ is an invaluable resource for race studies, American or Irish history, and civil rights seminars.

The key to understanding who the oppressed are and who the oppressors are is determined by looking at who the domestic workers are and for whom they work. Who is it that picks up after whom? Bernadette Devlin McAlisky's keen political sense with activists in the civil rights struggle and affluent Irish-Americans is very revealing. Catholic women pick up after Protestant families in Ireland. African-American women pick up after affluent Irish-American families in America. She felt more at home with members of The Black Panther Party than with these affluent Irish Americans. The support of the abolition struggle by Irish republicans such as Daniel O'Connell is of historic import. The support the Irish struggle by fighters such as Frederick Douglas and Marcus Garvey is also of historic interest. However, the interchange of tactics by both struggles is most revealing. The historic Belfast-Derry March in January 1969 was modeled after the Selma-Montgomery protest four earlier. The Montgomery bus boycott got its name from Captain Boycott an avaricious Irish landlord. Michael Farrell set up the Young Socialist Alliance in Ireland modeled after the Young Socialists Alliance in the United States. Black and Green has much more of interest for American understanding of the Irish struggle and is must reading for fighters struggling against oppression and bigotry.