UK Books

Absolutely excellent book of poetry for children of all ages. =) My parents bought it for my son when he was just a few months old. He's now 2 1/2 and I've just started reading it to him. He LOVES it.

The book runs the gamut from nursery rhymes for little ones, to poetry by Coleridge, Browning, Whitman, and Shakespeare. There are illustrations on every page with a preponderance of large colourful ones in the front of the book where the nursery rhymes are.

This book (or maybe it's just my edition, I don't know) comes from England so it has delightful little things in it like a young boy eating "chips" out of newspaper to illustrate the "one potato, two potato" poem. =) Some of the poems are the original English wording as well, thus "Ring around the Roses" has "Atishoo" instead of "Ashes".

This book is also a wonderful resource for the the Homeschooling Family as it can be used for all ages. It is pleasantly presented and is eye-catching.

Highly Recommended.

This book is an excellent introduction to poetry for children of all ages. It starts with a section of nursery rhymes and songs that are not only good for singing to babies and toddlers but which young children can start to read on their own. The book has three further sections where poems are grouped according to the age group who will probably enjoy them the most. There are many classic poems as well as funny and silly verse.
The authors range from Shakespeare, Langston Hughes and Tennyson to Spike Milligan and some limericks from Michael Palin. Unlike many similar books, every poem has an illustration and the style of these is as varied as the poems. This makes for a very attractive and stimulating read.
This is a book that grows with a child and would certainly spark an interest in words and poetry. It is of such quality that I am sure they would want to keep it to share with their children.

Fi Glover, a dj on BBC in England, finds herself between radio gigs for a few months, and decides to see what radio is like in other countries. So she buys a wind-up radio that requires no batteries or electricity and sets off for some places she'd heard were interesting, radio-wise. Travels With My Radio is the result, a hodge-podge of radio adventures in Europe, America, Lebanon, and the Caribbean.

The original title was I Am An Oil Tanker, based on a radio blooper made by a dj reading a breaking news bulletin. I'm glad the title was changed to something more straightforward because I would have ignored the book otherwise, thinking it was a children's book. As it was, I saw the title in a catalog (since Amazon doesn't sell the book, only the audiotape, I don't have any qualms about saying that I found it in The Common Reader catalog) and thought, what a great idea for a book. I always travel with a tiny transistor radio and enjoy hearing the different programs around the world.

Since Glover is in the business, she gains access to stations and radio hosts wherever she goes and this behind-the-scenes look is quite revealing. She sets off determined to meet Howard Stern and Art Bell, as well as some less famous, less quirky radio personalities. At least half the book is set in the U.S., in California, Las Vegas, New York, and Chicago.

Part of the fun of Travels With My Radio, for me, is the Britishness of it. (The book is not published in the U.S.) It's always fun to see what someone from abroad thinks of your country (Ciao, America by Beppe Severgnini, for example). Glover translates everything American into something her intended readers, Brits, will understand. So we end up with a New York traffic reporter saying "there's one flipped over on the carriageway in Queens," and a Santa Rosa dj saying "another beautiful summer day in Sonoma County with lows of 25 (celsius) on the coast." She misspells unfamiliar placenames: Pahrump, Nevada is consistently spelled Parumph and San Bernardino as San Bernadino. And she decides to take the Greyhound bus to Palm Springs from L.A. Naturally she finds her fellow riders are an odd, scraggly lot, because in this country, no one rides the bus unless they are unable, physically or legally, to drive a car. When she tries to take the city bus within Palm Springs, the bus driver advises her to take a cab.

Even though it is now possible to listen to just about any radio station in the world on the internet, Glover still manages to make her radio travels relevant. Her description of Gene Hackman giving a petulant interview, her arrival and adventures in Las Vegas the very week that Art Bell was quitting his paranormal talk show (coincidence?), her white-knuckle drive through Beirut, all great stories. She should be on the radio.

Fi Glover is an acclaimed BBC Radio Five Live broadcaster who began her career at the BBC's smallest local station Somerset Sound, later worked for GLR in London, flirted with television in BBC2's The Travel Show and now hosts BBC Radio Five Live's late show.

Glover is a self-confessed radio anorak whose first priority, when checking into any hotel room anywhere is to tune in the bedside radio to whatever local station takes her fancy. The Travel Show having given her a dose of wanderlust, she decides to travel to various far-flung parts of the world and discover them through their local radio stations. For some reason she has not made a radio programme about this, she has instead written a book, presumably because there was more money in a book. There's certainly very little in radio (and even less in web sites!).

I am an Oil Tanker is a travel book, in much the same way that Bill Bryson's books are and we are immediately as interested in the person doing the travelling as we are in the journey itself.

The first thing I do when I pick up a book to read it is look for a list of chapter titles to give me some idea of what might lie in store. This doesn't work with Terry Pratchett books but in this case we get:

1. Are you the girl on the radio this morning?
2. I'm feeling a bit grantic today
3. I am Frank Warren
4. And then he puked up over the minister
5. Why isn't there any radio porn?
6. We have the technology to take you to hell
7. Where do retired air stewardesses go?
8. I just love your value system
9. Gene Hackman has a jackal of a day
10. Maybe I'll stay a while
11. I haven't forgotten the chutney

... so we're clearly going to have a varied and interesting time in the company of a girl with a fully working sense of humour as our guide!

At the start of the book we find ourselves unceremoniously plonked in North California at a radio station whose breakfast show appears to be being presented by a couple of 'good old boys' who are absolutely full of it, and yet their programme connected with its audience and the phone-in element seemed to be the show's saving grace. I guess you had to be there.

In complete contrast chapter 2 takes us to Austria, and specifically to Blue Danube Radio, a wonderful station with an educational remit aimed at the international traveller. Sadly, at the time of her visit BDR is about to be closed, to be replaced by new and trendy Fear FM. Fear FM will not be, as it happens, a completely different station but one staffed by exactly the same people working in the very same building. But fortunately for us the change has not yet happened at the time of Glover's visit, and the book is well worth reading just for this chapter alone.

The Frank Warren bit comes in because Glover gets given Frank Warren's ticket for Euro 2000, so we're on our way to a small opt-out outpost of Five Live at Charleroi in Belgium. This gives us a fascinating insight into the way BBC radio manages to function on a budget worth slightly less than half a pair of shoelaces. (I presume this is what people mean when they say shoestring?)

Succeeding chapters then fling us to Beiruit and Southern Lebanon, New York, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, New York again, Chicago, Montserrat and Taunton, spending just enough time in each place to regain enough composure to steal a few hotel towels.

I particularly enjoyed her visits to Palm Springs, where she sampled KJJZ's brand of Cool Jazz and Montserrat, where Radio Montserrat proved to be the cement which held the island together both during and after the eruption of the islands once 'dormant' volcano.

To say that this book is readable is an understatement. Fi Glover has a wonderful writing style in which she holds little of herself back. In Beiruit she tells us of the "roasty toasty heat" of the Lebanon:

"we are all dripping with sweat - obviously I could at this point pretend that I was simply perspiring slightly but I wasn't, I was drenched - I suggest we stay under the shade of the trees in the garden to chat amicably about how he got to be a DJ in the middle of a war zone. This is the army after all - no time for idle chit-chat."

Fi Glover is the perfect companion on this trip around bits of the globe. There is also an abridged audiobook.

And the title...? Well, if you don't know the story, you'll have to buy the book for the explaination!

Wee Free Men is a children's book, but in the great tradition of British children's novels: it can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike. For my money, it is Pratchett's finest children's book. In the precocious, ferociously intelligent young witch Tiffany Aching he has created one of the great child protagonists in the genre. In the drinking, thieving, fighting and cussing Nac Mac Feegles, the Pictsies, the wee free men of the title, he has one of the comic forces of nature. The combination will make you laugh out loud. Repeatedly.

This 2008 edition brings Stephen Player's illustrations to Pratchett's 2003 novel. In some ways, some of the illustrations are a little too sweet. Tiffany Aching probably isn't that pretty, and I'm completely certain that Nac Mac Feegles are not nearly that clean or cute. But in other ways the illustrations are masterful. Tiffany's "unsuitable boots" are perfect. There are four delightful fold-out pages, the flashbacks are styled as diary pages, and the text of signs are set out as signs. The monsters are monsters, just short of terrifying, especially the dromes and the nightmares. And there's even a bit of new material for those of us who have read (and re-read) the book already.

The cameos by the Discworld's most famous witches at the end are spot-on. And Player's copy of "The Fairy Fellers' Master-Stroke" is inspired, even if the Feegle is being vulgar.

Too often, illustrations added later simply float over the story. Stephen Player's drawings, to a very considerable extent, add to the pleasure of the book. When Tiffany finds the way into Faerie, the fold-out drawing hides and reveals, just as Tiffany struggles to see with First Sight.

Player has brought new and additional delight to a delightful book. Very highly recommended.

Terry Pratchett's "Wee Free Men" in its original form has already been a wonderful appendix to the main Discworld book series, "Wee Free Men" being the first of the books written about Tiffany Aching, a young witch in-training and friend to the pictsies (think of drunken, thieving, fighting pixies with Scots accents; but never never never refer to them as "pixies" -- it would be safer to call the Librarian a "monkey"). As with all the best books written for a "young people" audience, the book is immensely enjoyable by an intelligent adult. Even in its original, text-only version it was a great pleasure, and now that enjoyment is enhanced thanks to the vivid, evocative illustrations in this new edition. I suppose it is impossible for an illustrator to exactly match the visual impressions already held by a reader, but Stephen Player does a good job at capturing the spirit of the thing. In several cases, the illustrations are cleverly integrated into the text, not presented merely as decorations.

If a reader is new to Discworld, this would be a good introduction (some of the later Discworld novels in the main series benefit from a previous familiariy with that peculiar world, although it does not delve into elephants on the back of a giant, space-swimming turtles; but a couple of popular characters from the main Discworld novels are on hand). And for long-time Discworld fans, it is simply a delight.

During the four years of WWI while battles raged across the European continent, the Royal Navy quietly transformed itself from a largely amateurish, unskilled, and unimaginatively led force into a highly professional, increasingly technical, and totally dominant juggernaut. Very quickly political appointees ran aground in the wartime environment and were replaced by confident, daring commanders. These changes became immediately apparent to the officers and men serving aboard RN ships, whose fascinating letters we read throughout the book.

The book starts by describing the life of prospective officers attending naval cadet school and later their (typical) traumas serving as midshipmen - basically one hazing after another until they became sub-lieutenants. However difficult midshipmen had it generally paled in comparison to the subservient, demeaning, and physically demanding life many common sailors led. The captain unquestionably remained God aboard ship with dire consequences for those who fell foul of him. Fisher's navy was extraordinarily class-conscious and overly centralized (with commanders often awaiting orders from distant superiors in the midst of desperate battle).

Julian Thompson, the author, summarizes all the Royal Navy's main actions in the book - Heligoland, Coronel, the Falklands, Gallipoli, Jutland, Zeebrugge/Ostend - using both narration and eyewitness sources. But beyond these well-known actions, Thompson takes us aboard tin cans shipping hurricane-strength seas during U-boat patrols, flying recon & bombing runs over the North Sea & Germany, and audaciously torpedoing enemy warships in their home waters. These accounts are absolutely fascinating - especially the zeppelin hunting expeditions over the North Sea and the trials (and failures) of early naval aviation. Ever heard of launching a plane off of a lighter (barge) pulled by a destroyer? They did it!

For landlubbers, the book also has a naval glossary, a list of naval rankings & ratings, and a few general area maps. Also included are some rarely seen photos and an extensive bibliography with notes. Having read lots about WWI, I was happily surprised that I found much fresh material in this book. It was a pleasure to read, too. I highly recommend it!

Julian Thompson's "The War at Sea" is an excellent study for all World War-II collectors as well as researchers. In the book, there are selected memories which were taken from major and minor naval actions during the Second World War. The book has a valuable photo-archive of Royal Navy, including some opponents' photos. Although the information level was shadowed by book's visual effects (also have some color paintings), you can find good statistics. Ten chapters of book were formed in the chronological way, having struggle of Royal Navy, not only in the Atlantic and Mediterranean but also in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, there are only five basic maps showing main naval bases and a detailed diagram. In sum, excellent and different.

I would highly recommend this wonderful and enchanting book. It is a gorgeous adventure story about a little elephant, who is learning the ways of africa and being a small brave elephant! You feel the author lives and breathes the African way of life, and also his love of the small elephant is tangible! I defy any adult whether reading it to a child, or just to themselves (like me) not to love this book and have a smile on their face at it's conclusion. I am certainly buying it for all the small people around me!!!

This book is fantastic. For anyone who has not had the privilege of meeting elephants in Africa, this book is the next best thing. The descriptions are so sympathetic to the character and nature of these wonderful creatures and the story told so beautifully that this will be a timeless book. Perfect for children and grown ups alike. Lets hope that there will be more from this author.

Imvula, Child of the Rain

Here's a novel that doesn't get to the point until it's ready to, with a satisfying payoff for the patient reader. It's a confessional: A man who, on the surface, cares little for commitment. He strikes the reader initially as the shallowest of libertines. But gradually, Binding draws us closer to the center of his story -- the tragedy that existed behind the quiet walls of his childhood home and the seething restlessness of the ordinary working-folk who were his neighbors. The second half of the novel gels, picks up speed, and the reader forgets all the apparent blind alleys and red herrings of the first chapters. The flashbacks are relentless, but skillfully employed.

Truthfully, this was probably meant to be several novels, or perhaps several short stories ... but they work together to paint a vivid portrait of English life in the post-war decades, up to the present time.

Tim Binding is spellbinding, or at least this book is. The story of a weatherman, shameless and without conscience, shielded from the events of his childhood untill Stella Muchmore's name suddenly appears, like a ghost from the past, leaving him with a need to come clean and to discover the real truth. Set against England's great storm of '87 this wonderfully written book is funny, tragic and disturbing, and left me anxious to discover what had happened to Stella Muchmore, so much so that I stayed in bed for most of the day, forgetting to breakfast and hardly daring to breathe. Quite brilliant.

This book was told to me to be the only generalist field guide to Insects and I can now say it is true! Very useful, simple and precise!

The most detailed and complete field guide on insects I've ever seen....plenty of color drawings and descriptions on morphology, habitat, ecology and ethology of each species. If you love the nature you can't loose it!

Dr. Jerry Ratcliffe presents the policing philosophies in a framework with strengths and weakness along with actionable solutions using "intelligence"! His book is an excellent guide for police agencies to address the policing paradigms.

Police leaders, managers and patrol officers all must recognize the support the academic community can provide. Yes Jerry, "intelligence" is an abused word per se in policing; not just the "Secret Sam" surveillance, undercover work or covert operations. "Intelligence' is problem resolution leading with accountability and sustainability.

We must look in our own backyards and focus on the local priorities to keep our communities safe to reduce crime and the fear of crime. Local police resources must be balanced with the State and National levels to target organized crime including terrorism without over taxing the local citizens' pockets.

Police Leaders, this is a must read and a must share with your organization!
Excellent Jerry.

This book should be recommended reading for analysts, police executives, operational staff and students of policing.

Ratcliffe's experiences and knowledge provide rich insights into ILP, painting a clear picture in the process. Specifically, Ratcliffe answers several questions about ILP. In doing so, he:

* defines ILP;
* traces its origins;
* explores its relationship with other policing paradigms;
* highlights its distinctive features;
* shows how ILP impacts on crime and
* discusses whether it prevents crime.

The book is well structured and is complemented by chapter introductions defining Ratcliffe's arguments. Each chapter also contains a practitioner viewpoint, which augments the chapter contents and demonstrates theory in practice. Ratcliffe's writing is readable, clear and often provokes a smile. He includes a limited list of acronyms and, as expected, a comprehensive bibliography covering extant literature on ILP (none as comprehensive as Ratcliffe's), other policing paradigms and several interesting research studies.

Conceding the elusive nature of ILP, Ratcliffe defines it as a business model and managerial philosophy in which data analysis and crime intelligence (a combination of crime analysis and criminal intelligence) are the cornerstones of an objective, decision-making framework. At the framework's core are crime/intelligence analysts, responsible for producing analysis and intelligence, that is, actionable knowledge that is client-specific. This is used to impact on crime and problems (reduction, disruption and prevention.)

Ratcliffe employs two key conceptual aids to support his arguments: the crime funnel and the 3-i model. The crime funnel is used to illustrate the size of the crime challenge and to demonstrate the limitations of the `arrest and prosecute' approach to suppress criminal acts. Ratcliffe uses the crime funnel to show that for every 1000 crimes only 4 offenders are incarcerated.

The 3-i model - interpret-influence-impact - is a cyclic concept that conceptualises the processes inherent in ILP. The agency's crime intelligence analysis section interprets the criminal environment; the agency analysts attempt to influence agency decision makers through recommendations; and the decision-makers then make decisions and take actions to impact on the criminal environment. This model departs from other analytical process models in that it is contextualised in the crime and policing environments.

Early in the book, a New Jersey Fusion Centre worker lament is quoted: "Building the plane as we're flying it." The same charge can no longer be levied against ILP for Jerry Ratcliffe has produced its first blue print.

My wife purchased Puzzle Safari "Into Africa" for our 2 year old daughter before embarking on two short flights with long layovers. The book saved our sanity. Marina not only enjoys using the puzzle book she also lured passengers seated next to us into the book's spell. By the time we were headed home Marina had all five puzzles memorized and pretended not to know where the pieces went so that the passenger seated next to us felt she was involved in the process. Bring a strong rubber band to wrap around the book and the pieces stay in place.

My 2 1/2 year old son loves both puzzles and lions (he's a Simba fan), so this puzzle book was a winner. After 9 months of heavy use, we wore it out and I am on-line to buy a replacement. He memorized these puzzles, so I think the published age range is a little high, a 2 1/2-3 year old will do fine with adult supervision. The pictures are nice and the pieces stayed in well even on the bookshelf for the first few months.

I've read many laymen level books about the Bible, and this one is the best. This book is not written for professional scholars; however it does a good job of doing the following:

1) It discusses the many English language versions and explains why a particular version might appeal to certain groups of people

2) Explains the difference between the Bibles that the Protestant churches, Roman Catholics Church, and Eastern Orthodox Churches uses

3) Explains the difficulties that Bible scholars encounter when they attempt to make a translation

4) Discusses higher criticism of the Bible, and explains current scholarly thought. In my opinion, he is honest about where he stands, and yet he explains the position of scholars which disagree with him.

The author also does a good job of directing the reader who wants to do further research. I'll probably never read the Bible in the same way again.

For such a short book (188 pages) this is amazingly comprehensive and thorough. Especially interesting was the chapter on the differences between the Hebrew and Greek versions of some of the Old Testament books. The chapters on the use and the study of the Bible were also very good.