Publishers Books

I purchased this book after reading the first novel by Ryan Phillips, Saving Grace. Then I purchased the next book. I have all three and I have never been disappointed with her work. If you are in want of a good book, then read this but be prepared not to get anything done because you won't be able to put it down. One of my co-worker/friend was on our way to a meeting in which we had to travel three hours. I decided to bring along my book because I knew this would be the opportune time to read. Needless to say, I didn't talk much to my co-worker and really didn't want her talking much to me because I was so intensely into the book. I recommend reading the preceding one before reading this one. By then, you will swear you know each and every character. Can't wait until Ryan comes out with more of her great work.

After reading Ryan Phillips' first book, "Saving Grace", I became an instant fan of her work. I just finished "Fall from Grace" and I am equally, if not more, pleased with this book as with "Saving Grace"!

Ryan Phillips is truly a great author, I would highly recommend this book! GREAT READ!! Can't wait for the next one!

I really hope she continues Grace's story. Saving Grace was GREAT and Fall from Grace was a great follow-up. I'm still amazed at how young Ryan Phillips is you can tell that her writing is a God-given gift.

Saving Grace was an excellent read and so is this sequel Fall From Grace.

Grace and Trina have been best friends forever. Their relationship though causes alot of conflicts between them. At a point in their lives they lose themselves and Christ and must find a way back.

This book is filled with everyday issues, with twists and turns.

Fall From Grace was so good that it would literally take me all day to describe everything I loved about it. It was witty, mesmerizing, challenging, beautiful. To have a front row seat into the hearts and minds, successes and failures of fellow christians was far more than an entertaining read. The characters are so rich it made me think how can one person (the author, Ms. Phillips) be able to so keenly describe, speak and think for such a variety of individuals less she be utterly ingenious. WOW WOW and WOW pretty much describes how I feel and what I think. Beautiful. Creative. Unpredictable. Congratulations Ryan Phillips, I have a new favorite book. I never imagined that the sequel could be any better than Saving Grace (which was phenomenal). Fall From Grace was better than any movie or book I've ever seen or read thus far and I am so excited for the next Masterpiece. I am so thankful for the wonderful blessing this story was to me.

P.S. Between you and me...my eyes were a little watery...and I never cry over fiction! :)

For me this was an amazing discovery. I read a review of it in a literary magazine in the waiting room of my optician and when I got home I immediately ordered it from Amazon.
What caught my eye in the review were the names of the inhabitants of the February House - Auden, Britten,McCullers... in that amazing year. I knew of their work individually but to read of them living under the same roof was a revelation.What a cauldron of creativity! All against the background of the war in Europe and the period leading up to Pearl Harbour.As I read the book I felt as though I were there. I hope that someone will make a documentary about it or better still a dramatised reconstruction. The two Truman Capote films have blazed the trail.

A friend just recommended this book to me and it's fabulous!!! I live in an artist bldg and it's nothing compared to the energy of Middagh Street. The book is a great read and the research is most impressive. I cannot wait to read the one she's writing about the Chelsea Hotel!

Thomas Wolf once famously said "only the dead know Brooklyn." There might be some truth in that, but some of us know Brooklyn, N.Y.,U.S.A., pretty well,and are still very much alive. Quite a few people are aware of Brooklyn's brownstone belt, that swath of historic houses stretching from the East River to Prospect Park and beyond. Many of these people would declare Brooklyn Heights the ultimate Brooklyn brownstone neighborhood. It's beautiful, and gets scenic views of Manhattan. It's got history galore--an important Revolutionary War battle was fought here;and it's been, and still is,home to a lot of well-known important people.

One little-known fact is that a number of celebrated people shared a house on Middagh Street, in 1940-41, right in the middle of the Second World War. That house, which came to be known as February House-- a number of its residents had February birthdays-- has long since been torn down to make room for the Promenade that provides storied views of Manhattan. But among occupants of February House were poet W.H.Auden, writer Carson McCullers, writers Jane and Paul Bowles,composer Benjamin Britten, and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

Writer Sherill Tippens has produced an interesting, pleasantly gossipy book about the house's residents and their accomplishments. Jane Bowles began "Two Serious Ladies," her only completed novel here. The young lesbian Carson McCullers had just tasted, at the age of 23, great success with her novel "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." She began two other great successes, "The Member of the Wedding," and "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," between drinking bouts, right here on Middagh Street.

Auden and Britten, both homosexual, but not involved with each other, were being raked over the coals at the time by the British press for choosing to sit out World War II in the U.S. But they were working: they collaborated on the opera "Paul Bunyan,"not critically well-received. Auden who continued to live in the Heights, on his own, to pursue his lifelong, unrequited love for the young American Chester Kallman, was working hard in the interstices of his personal soap opera: He produced "The Double Man" in February House. Britten produced "Peter Grimes;"considered one of the great masterpieces of 20th century opera. Meanwhile, he pursued his own personal soap opera: many critics believe this opera echoes developments with his partner, tenor Peter Pears, at the time.

The most unexpected resident of February House would have to be Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque artiste. She was talked into joining the fun by George Davis, homosexual himself, fiction editor of "Harpers Bazaar" magazine, whose idea February House was, and who worked hard to keep it alive. Davis had published some of his own writing, but he was best known for the talented writers he kept on discovering.

In Gypsy Lee's case, she brought some money, a lot of common sense,and a cook to Middagh Street. The house's residents needed all the above. Her reward for her support: George Davis, great editor, midwifed her book, "The G-String Murders," a publishing sensation for many years.

George Davis continued to live at 7 Middaagh Street after its time as an artistic commune had passed. After Kurt Weill's death, Davis married his widow, Lotte Lenya, and devoted his life to introducing America to Weill's great works,such as "Three Penny Opera,"from which we get "Mack the Knife."

There are some informative photographs, extensive notes and acknowledgements in February House. Tippins evidently did a lot of primary research, but she managed to organize the voluminous results in a very readable style. February House well rewards the reader.

Sherill Tippins has done an amazing job of finding the significant narrative threads in the chaotic convergence of creative lives that occurred in the months before Pearl Harbor when Harper's Bazaar editor George Davis and British expatriate poet W.H. Auden rented a brownstone on 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights and actively recruited other creative artists to live with them. Among the co-renters were Carson McCullers who had recently published her highly acclaimed first novel, "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter," soon-to-be famous British composer Benjamin Britten and his parnter, singer Peter Pears, unpublished novelists Paul and Jane Bowles, Broadway set designer Oliver Smith, writer Richard Wright and his wife, and burlesque sensation Gypsy Rose Lee, who it turns out was the most reliable in the rent-paying department and joined the little "creative commune" on the condition that she could bring her own cook and maid. Her fiscal reliability and drive along with Auden's willingness to take on the unpleasant role of house disciplinarian (collecting rent and other "dues" and establishing and enforcing many house rules) are probably sufficient explanation for why this menage managed to last the two or three years it did.

Tippins wisely focuses her attention on the leading figures (without neglecting to name the many others who partied but did not reside at 7 Middagh--Salvador and Gala Dali, Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine, Erika Mann and her brothers Klaus and Golo, to name a few). One passer-through, Anais Nin, christened the dwelling "February House" because so many of the residents had February birthdays. Tippins has a good knowledge of the works of these creative people and is able to see how one of the artists intentionally or inadvertantly influenced a subsequent work of one of his or her co-residents. For example, McCullers was struggling with the novel that would later become "The Member of the Wedding" when she was able to appropriate an experience from Chester Kallman's childhood to explain her heroine's profound sense of alienation and abandonment (Kallman was Auden's lover).

Tippins other great achievement here was her ability to slice through history and palpably recreate the political atmosphere in pre-war New York and to do so in a way that reflects on both British and US perspectives. She takes a good hard look at the criticism expatriates like Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Britten, and Pears faced from the British press and fellow artists who chose to remain in Great Britian during the war. She is similarly insightful in her analysis of the role the Mann family had in trying to get an apathetic America to respond to the European crisis. A lesser writer might not have bothered with these issues and chosen to report only the salacious and saleable anecdotes about the goings-on of the February House residents.

I highly recommend this book to anyone even passingly interested in one of the artists who lived at 7 Middagh Street (you're sure to learn something new), to anyone who ever wondered how great works of art come about, or to anyone interested in knowing how history and art intersect. I'm sure I'm going to use Tippins's Selecte Bibliography as a basis for future Amazon.com purchases.

Sherill Tippins' volume fills a tantalizing gap that fans of Auden, McCullers, Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee have long wished could be filled. Most overdue is Tippins' portrait of George Davis: failed literary wunderkind; editor extraordinaire (who "discovered" McCullers and got much-needed writing jobs for her and W. H. Auden in the lean months before Pearl Harbor); husband to Lotte Lenya and the catalyst that re-invented her for American audiences in Marc Blitzstein's staging of Weill's "Threepenny Opera"--the list goes on and on. Davis and Auden are central to Tippins' account and to the amazing colony of artists who called 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights their home in 1940-41. But Tippins gives everyone in that circle his/her due. Her depictions of Auden's rocky romance with Chester Kallman, of Benjamin Britten's coming to terms with his artistic destiny in England, not America, and Gypsy Rose Lee's ability to charm and disarm everyone she met are more than engaging--they are extremely moving.

Tippins' research is exhaustive and impeccable, and she lets her characters speak naturally and eloquently. I could not put this book down and practically read it at one sitting. I was hungry for the kind of information Tippins delivered, and I finished the book with the deepest satisfaction. Gracefully written, carefully organized and researched, and extremely relevant: this book wins on all counts.

This book absolutely captivated me when I was younger, and I ended up reading the whole series. Leitch portrays a young girl who is, well, young-- with great sensitivity and endearment. Our red-haired heroine is sometimes impulsive, sometimes selfish, sometimes short-tempered, but always uniquely perceptive, loving, sensitive, and very, very recognizable! The horse of the story, too, acts like a real horse-- spooky, moody, and magical to eyes that know how to see it-- revealing that the author has a deep knowledge of both horses and young girls (well, I was a young girl once too, but it's clear to me that Ms. Leitch *remembers* it with a greater perception than I ever did.) There are some very nice elements to the stories, even morality and character issues, without ever becoming cliche or saccharine. The dark borders the light very effectively in these books set on the heather-and-bracken filled hills of Scotland. Judging from the characters in the books it is also clear to me that Ms. Leitch has been acquainted with at least one stodgy, stubbornly amusing Scottish farmer. This is the first in a series of beautiful stories that, in my opinion, are a must-have for any young-at-heart horse lover.

Horsecrazy Jinny Manders is thrilled when her father, a disillusioned social worker, moves his family from the city to a tumbledown ruin of an old house in rural Scotland. Her bliss turns back into dreaming when she falls in love with an abused circus mare, a spectacular chesnut Arabian, who has escaped into the wilderness surrounding Jinny's new home.

Very solid horse story (which means of course it's pretty unlikely, that's the whole point), strong action, vivid writing. British social attitudes of the 1970's lend it a slightly baffling feel to a modern American (or, probably, anyone else)

this was an awesome book! if you are looking for another place to get it, try half.com , i found all the books in the Horseshoes series by Patricia Leitch for under $3 each. alibris also has patty leitch books for cheap.

This is one of the best horse books ever--one of the best books ever. This book is sad, funny, and at moments quite terrifying. This is a great book for people of all ages and it is really a pity that they are out of print. I advise anyone to buy this book--it's really worth it.

This title For Love of a Horse, and the other eleven in the series are the best horse stories I have ever read - I can't believe they are currently out of print!?! This first book sets up the series, where Jinny and her family move to the Scottish highlands and Jinny rescues Shantih from the circus and brings her home to Finmory. Patricia Leitch writes in a way that lets you share in Jinny's happiness, pain, family life, and perils of growing up. The other books in the series in order are: A Devil to Ride -- The Summer Riders -- Night of the Red Horse -- Gallop to the Hills -- Horse in a Million -- The Magic Pony -- Ride Like the Wind -- Chestnut Gold -- Jump for the Moon -- Horse of Fire -- Running Wild. I am lucky enough to have read them all and own eight of them, and have read them over and over. Please reprint these(!!) so a new generation can enjoy Patricia Leitch's Jinny stories.

At school my whole class read this book for read aloud! It was a very good book. Frida was very good at art. She had five sisters but it seamed like they didn't pay attention to her! She was always lonely and she was bored.But atleast she had Imaginary friends to comfort her. One day she got in a horrible bus accident! Read this book to find out how Frida turned out after her pain. Reccomended for people who may want to learn how to turn pain into beauty.

I own the Spanish version of this book, and I love it. So do all my students - I teach Preschool Spanish (ages 3-6). My 5 year old daughter is an artist and she loves the vivid colors and imaginative characters that follow Frida through her life. The children I teach do not know Spanish, but they are able to look at the pictures and understand the story. They regularly request this book and enjoy looking for the 'spooky' characters.

My son and daughter could really relate to another person's life thanks to this well-written and cleverly illustrated book. Frida was, as they are now, someone who wasn't always able to have her mother's attention. She lived out fantasies in her mind, just as they do. She used her imagination even when she was unable to move her body, just like they do before they fall asleep at night. Frida's quotidian and extraordinary experiences spring to life thanks to the inventive illustrations and sympathetic writing.

More than once, creating art saved Frida Kahlo's life. Even though she had five sisters, she was almost always lonely and sad. When she was infected with polio and she was very sick, even her imaginary friends couldn't cheer her up, but painting and drawing rescued her. Most of her life, she was in heart-breaking pain after being in a horrible bus accident. Read this book to find out how art saved her once more. Recommended for people who want to learn how Frida Kahlo turned terrible pain into beautiful masterpieces.

My mom read me this book and I saw that art is important and special, it can save you and allow you to express your imagination even when times are tough

I purchased this atlas for anatomy lab because it was recommended by my professor. Looking through the book, it has wonderful pictures and really simplified structures so you can actually see what you are looking at rather than a portion of it and the rest hidden behind other structures. However, it is not a very complete atlas. The most glaring example - there is nothing about the head and neck. I had to buy another atlas just to get through this past test. I personally recommend Netter's as a reference atlas because it has EVERYTHING in it. I know the pictures and millions of lines coming out can be overwhelming, however, if you are looking for a specific structure you are way more likely to find it in Netter's.

Thieme is awesome. I am a chiropractic student and my anatomy teacher recommended this atlas. It is beautifully illustrated and very clearly shows the layers of muscle. Bones are shown in different planes. Nerve paths, dermatomes, biomechanics, even bursae are depicted. A great reference!!

Honestly, I find studying A&P tedious and generally boring. Purchasing Thieme's was the best move I've made. The plates are so beautiful that I want to linger on each page for a long time. Every person whom I've shown this book to said they wished they had bought it instead of Netter's.

This is a great book, and I recommend all three if you can afford them. Otherwise, just get Netter or Grant.

This book has one major flaw (caused me to miss an exam question): On page 503, there is an illustration of the medial malleolus and associated neurovascular structures. The illustrators got the order wrong that these structures pass behind the medial malleolus and deep to the tarsal tunnel. From anterior to posterior, they should be: Tibialis posterior, flexor Digitorum longus, posterior tibial Artery, tibial Nerve, and flexor Hallucis longus (Tom, Dick, AN' Harry). However, the artery and nerve are posterior to the flexor hallucis longus muscle in the illustration. Minutia, I know, but just FYI for you M1s.

Also, the fact that these atlases are in a three book series means that when you are covering the thorax, you have to use two books to cover everything on the test. It can be a little tedious, and Netter and Grant atlases have it all integrated into one book.

This book, however, has a lot of cool information in the writing, and together with the outstanding and NUMEROUS illustrations, make it perhaps the best choice for any student in the medical field.

By far, this is the best atlas series available and as a medical student, I would recommend the three atlases to anyone who studies in the field of anatomy. Trust me, this is THE book you keep for life!

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die (BK Life (Paperback))

This is a beautiful book that quietly dances around your soul causing you to reflect on your own life. Using the metaphor of her own lifelong journey hiking in the mountains, the author takes the experiences of those hikes and connects them to the choices which fill life with joy and wonder. The book is illustrated with wonderful art that is worth the price of the book on its own. Eileen is a great communicator in person and on paper through the written word. This book is a gift from the mountain to your soul. You will want to keep it my your bedside and read more than once.

John Izzo, Author of The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

The natural world has a knack for being able to cut all our complications and confusions down to size. And that's exactly what Eileen McDargh does with this lyrical book, showing us through observations on the backpacking trail that the path ahead is right in front of us--if we're really looking. She certainly is, finding lessons for use at home and work in the tenaciousness of a high-altitude flower, the unexpected whims of the elements, and the danger of false confidence on the downhill track. Books that shine the mirror of nature back on us often wind up stuck in the gates from triteness. Not this one. The writing is superb. I kept thinking, I wish I'd seen that on the trail. I wish I'd written that. If you love the outdoors, are a hiking fan, or just want to get some wise words from a pathfinder who can clarify decisions in work or life, check this little book out. It gets you off the bullet train and lets you see the forest AND the trees.

I stumbled across this book through a newspaper article that was forwarded to me by a dear friend. (Kathy M. Kristof, "Spend your cash on things that are truly valuable") I was inspired by the article so I ordered the book that the article mentioned: "Gifts From the Mountain: Simple Truths for Life's Complexities"

I can say that the book was not at all what I thought it was going to be. BUT...I am very, very happy with my purchase. I call my experience with this book my happy, little accident. It came to me at a time where I really needed to have simple and clear messages to help me interpret some situations in my life. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for some insight into themselves and the world around them.

Enhanced with full color illustrations by Roderick MacIver, "Gifts From The Mountain: Simple Truths For Life's Complexities" by Eileen McDargh is a remarkable 114-page compendium of advisory truths for daily living that would be applicable to every man and woman regardless of their situation or circumstance in life. MacIver writes with a kind of lyrical metaphor when dealing with life's demands. The result is a collection of individual wisdoms that are universally applicable and enthusiastically recommended. 'Every Ounce Counts': Hike enough and you trim the weight/of what you carry. You learn that pita bread/weighs less than squaw bread; dried apples weight less than/trail mix; ramen and dried vegetables weigh even less/than some freeze-dried entrees. you discover/you can share a tube of toothpaste. Ditto deodorant,/sunscreen, and bug repellent.//How often do we encumber our civilized life with things/we WANT instead of things we truly need?//Choose what you carry carefully./I never saw a hearse with a U-haul behind.

When your workaholic colleagues and friends do not let up on their all-enveloping "goal", give them a respite they may pick up and read one day - and feel different when done. Thank you Eileen for this sensory, elegantly-simple gift book of reminders for why we are helped by taking that pause and looking around. Sculling out on Richardson Bay here in Sausalito this morning, I reflected back on her wise insights.
- Kare, movingfrommetowe.com

Defin. a book worth buying! -very helpful & makes civil procedure really easy to understand.

Glannon's guide is God send. if you purchase Glannon's E&E, you must also purchase his guide to learning Civ Pro through MCQ's. It is great!

Love it!

The book was delievered in great condition, within a moderately good time frame. It has proved very useful in my 1L studies!

Glannon clearly and succinctly provides examples of possible multiple choice questions that could be found on exams. Unlike a lot of other guides I've seen...it's not confusing and it's not a chore to read through the book.

Without a doubt this is an essential key to success in civil procedure. I basically outlined this book along with my class notes and got an A on the exam. Very, very, very good aid.

This book really gets on the level my 4-yr old daughter. Its a gentle reminder of the fruits of the spirit. It leads to kid like discussion that helps them to understand what you expect from them as little girls. I think this book is a keeper. Somethimes when things are going rough at home we pull out this book and plant a little seed of scripture in their young heart. The pictures are lovely as well.

This book is excellent. It aligns the Proverbs 31 scripture along with daily life that little girls understand and can apply.

It's so nice to read something to my daughter that I know is feeding her spiritually. She really connects with the illustrations, and loves to talk about what the girl in the story is doing. This book has naturally lead us into wonderful conversations about what it means to belong to God and what kind of habits we need to be forming as His children.

Beautiful pictures and borders. A great gift to give to parents of newborns and to preschool and primary children. God's Wisdom for Little Boys is equally wonderful.

This beautifully illustrated book is full of wonderful prose and rhymes that could be read to any little girl old enough to know right from wrong. The stanza format is excellent, and if you were to work on and apply each page a week at a time (with repetitive reviews) it will turn into a lasting treasure.

Wow, this must have been quite a few hours of work for Joshi! The fonts are below even standard book-fonts, AND I hear it's an abridged version but still the book is almost 700 pages. But don't get me wrong, in many ways I wish it was longer. The book is a fine introduction to Lovecraft's life, and to most Lovecraft-readers, probably quite enough in itself. It chronicles on an annual basis, highlighting and describing any interesting incidents or activities revolving around Lovecraft and his circle of friends and family that happened over the years. There's not much to say about this, its very good and solid biographical work by a fine devotee of Lovecraft; S.T Joshi. Its not often reading a biography makes me sad, but reading the final chapter on Lovecraft himself "The end of one's life" made a certain Norwegian man quite sad. Apart from some points I'm about to take up, I have no doubt that this is a biography that Lovecraft himself would have approved of. It could have been more detailed in its description of how the various fiction came to be, and more analysis of this area, but it IS after all a biography, so that was of course Joshi's prerogative.

Now to the bad; as a little background to the author of the book, he is in fact an immigrant; an Indian living with a miscegenating Euro-American female. This explains why he constantly abuses Lovecraft for his conservative and racialist views. He conjures up non-sense frequently when talking about this subject; somehow concluding that theories about race and miscegenation etc were definitively debunked by the "scientific work" of Franz Boas. This is of course complete nonsense, like Kevin MacDonald has shown in his excellent work "The Culture of Critique". Franz Boas had specific racial reasons himself for carrying out his campaign against the use of "race" in academia, and the reasons for this were far from what the Western standard of science represents.

So even though I highly recommend the book, I wish Joshi could have been so intellectually honest that he admitted in the book that his status as a non-European immigrant himself has biased him, and made him write the book with an extreme liberal and secular slant. So if you manage to ignore this part of Joshi's book; you'll have on your hands an excellent and well-written account of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and a good introduction to his writing.

Joshi is the foremost student of Lovecraft, and in this volume he has written the unsurpassable biography of the man whom Stephen King himself called "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."

For myself, I can only say it's been a long wait. I first discovered Lovecraft at my local library in eleventh grade. I picked a book decorated with some macabre illustration off a twirling bookstand, checked it out, and rode my bike home with the volume tucked under my arm. That evening I sat with it in the big white reading chair in our home's living room. The first story I read was "The Picture In the House."

I was hooked.

Within the year I'd read every story Lovecraft wrote excepting one--"Herbert West: Reanimator". (I finally got to that earlier this year.) I became, in a way, obsessed with Lovecraft. I wanted to know who he was, so I read Frank Belknap Long's Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside. The stories and poetry I was writing at the time became increasingly colored by (or downright imitative of) my hero. Somehow, the man infected my consciousness in a way no other writer--before or since--ever has. I guess it's because in so many ways my inner life has been--with some important exceptions--a parallel to Lovecraft's. I see him as a kindred spirit.

That being the case, it's hardly surprising I relished--nay, wallowed in--this biography. It is detailed beyond imagining. Here we follow Lovecraft on his walking tours, street by street. We see his grocery lists and menu items. We read his letters and amateur publications. By the end of this text you will feel you have lived and breathed right alongside the old fellow and slung arm-in-arm with him through his nightmare worlds. No one could have done it better than Joshi, and it is doubtful anyone ever will. If you are a fan, this is a must read. If just curious, the lengthy detail might be off-putting, but you may find yourself a convert by the end.

Unlike De Camp in his earlier biography, Joshi doesn't consider HPL to be a failed version of what he might have been had he at various key points in his life been just that little bit more commerce-minded: instead he accepts Lovecraft as he was and goes on from there. I think Joshi brings out what it is about Lovecraft & his work that continues to fascinate today: the curious fact that an erudite, scholarly autodidact should, from an early age, have been so caught up in a melodramatic 'pulp' aesthetic that for the rest of his life he focussed the entirety of his self-expression - emotional, intellectual and philosophical - through that aesthetic. Hence Lovecraft's stories have, even at their most garish & mechanical, an (admittedly sometimes near-subliminal) intellectually rich underpinning, and it is this bleed-through of a higher aesthetic that lifts them above the acres of hackwork that surrounded them when first published in Weird Tales, (try reading even a 'best of' by those other writers today!), gives them a psychological curiosity, and has given them their unexpected longevity.

Joshi's analysis of the 'Cthulhu Mythos' is, I think, exactly right: he defines the Mythos (not HPL's coinage, of course), as 'a fictional technique' for presenting Lovecraft's philosophy - which Joshi defines astutely as 'an anti-theology' which makes manifest (as we see with the cultists in Call of Cthulhu) the delusive nature of all religious belief, and asserts the meaningless of human existence in a vast, uncaring, mechanistic universe.

This analysis justifies what would otherwise be an excessively lengthy exploration of Lovecraft's political and philosophical beliefs, given that he published no significant writing on those subjects, and was only considered a great thinker by his friends and epistolary correspondents. It also highlights the unalloyed perversity of August Derleth in imposing a Catholic-inflected cosmology onto Lovecraft's atheistic vision. How strange that he was so fascinated by HPL & his work, but couldn't accept what Joshi rightly points out is its absolute core!

Joshi manages to address various differing opinions in the world of Lovecraft Studies without becoming pedantic or petty, and takes trouble to credit other researchers and academics for their insights.

As a biography this book is full of interest, and Joshi's pursuit of detail is relentless - occasionally to the point of obsessiveness, it has to be said, but some of the details he uncovers are highly revealing. His account of Lovecraft's death I found surprisingly moving, but I did not, as I did on finishing the De Camp biography, regret his life - except in the single matter of his clinging on to racist beliefs and self-diminishing prejudices.

I have very few criticisms. There are no photographs, and I think the cover is horrid - & certainly is not a good likeness of HPL. Occasionally Joshi is so aesthetically aligned with his subject he indulges him (as he does with certain of his amateur endeavors); occasionally Joshi is over-definitive in his judgment of the merits of various yarns. I think he slightly misses the mark at various points when he comments of (eg the denoument of Herbert West) that HPL must have been sending up his own style to *intentionally* comic effect. This, I think, is not quite right: rather, it seems to me, he allowed his discipline to slip, and reverted to the garish style of the Argosy yarns that he had read as a child, the style of which had so fundamentally informed his entire notion of the form of aesthetic and psychological self-expression that he could never quite discard it. Lovecraft knew it was a failing on his part, but sometimes let it off the leash regardless. I'm sure he never thought of his verbal pyrotechnics as anything other than, on sober reflection, accidentally funny.

Aside from those very modest quibbles, I found Joshi's judgments & assessments at all times perceptive and thought-provoking, and his 'Life' a highly-readable achievement in biography.

The good: Until S.T. Joshi's book, the only serious, widely-available biographical information on HPL apart from his letters was 'H.P. Lovecraft; A Biography' (1975) by L. Sprague de Camp, which left many gaps and open questions. Joshi's book fills in the gaps and then some. It is the closest thing we have to a definitive Lovecraft bio, and if you're a Lovecraft scholar of any seriousness, you'll eventually need to read it.

The not-so-good: While Joshi's book reads like a rigorously well-researched first draft, I wish he'd consulted a manuscript editor before publication. This massive, expensive and ponderous 708-page book could perhaps be edited into a more readable and reasonably-priced 300-page book, with another 100 pages of small print endnotes, merely by removing Joshi and his scholarship from the foreground and replacing them with Lovecraft. For example:

- Joshi includes himself in the story, using the first person pronoun on nearly every page. "I..." this and "I..." that. While Joshi is likely the world's foremost Lovecraft scholar, and I appreciate his excellent and exhaustive efforts as a researcher, I did not plunk down such a hefty cover price to read about his adventures in scholarship. Easily 200 pages of this 708 page book are about the adventures of Joshi, Lovecraft scholar. That information belongs either in a short appendix or separate article. He'll print a quotation and then add, "To this analysis there is really very little to add...," or "I don't think I can add much to this," or "That last remark may be a little sanguine, but let it pass," seemingly for no other purpose than to firmly return the spotlight, which had momentarily alighted on Lovecraft, to himself. On nearly every page I felt that trapped "captive audience" feeling you get with professors who use class time to speak at length about their personal lives. Surely by now it has become standard practice for biographers to not include the personal "I" in their biographies, at least when they've never met the subject.

- While most biographies focus on the subject and relegate sources and disputes to footnotes and endnotes, Joshi foregrounds the sources and points of contention, which has the odd effect of almost burying the subject. You'll often read four paragraphs of sources and conjecture containing a single sentence of actual biographical information. If Lovecraft did X, but there's some dispute, I'd prefer the main body to say "Lovecraft probably did X," with a small-print footnote citing sources and contentions. I paid to read about Lovecraft, not Lovecraft scholarship. I often feel like I'm being punished, forced to read 708 pages to get 300 pages of information.

- As another reviewer pointed out, Joshi frequently expresses his personal opinions in a tone suggesting that he believes them to be indisputable fact. Especially disconcerting is Joshi's careful habit of never missing an opportunity to denigrate Lovecraft himself. A tiny sampling of Joshi's descriptions of Lovecraft and his work includes: clownish error, clumsily, embarrassing, paranoia, pompous, pseudo-philosophical, trying to do too much, moping, overly given to histrionics, painfully inept, pitiable wish-fulfilment [sic], a pretty sorry excuse for a story, offensive, dubious and pathetic. It's almost as though, while Joshi must have some respect for Lovecraft, he is careful to constantly place himself "above" Lovecraft emotionally. I can sympathize with Joshi, who as a serious scholar must sometimes find himself exasperated by uninformed intellectuals who still underrate Lovecraft's genuine contribution. However, I feel that the body of a biography is not the best place for Joshi to distance himself from Lovecraft's sillier decisions. If Joshi dislikes something, surely he need not bolster his personal opinion by inflating it into a grandiose pretend-fact by pompously lecturing the reader as to what we ought to despise or where to place our "well-deserved contempt."

Why are Joshi's opinions in the book at all? Doesn't he trust his readers to form our own opinions? Almost once per page I felt some resentment at being forced to play captive audience to Joshi's unwelcome editorial opinions and emotional self-positioning in order to gain access to his excellent scholarship. Toward the end Joshi finally provides his editorial rationalization, introducing the topic by slamming previous Lovecraft biographer de Camp with: "[de Camp]'s schoolmasterly chiding of Lovecraft [is] ...galling." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Joshi goes on to claim that "passing value judgments... is the proper function of any biographer." Excuse me? As with all of Joshi's most dubious assumptions, he provides not a single citation or justification for this opinion, but merely states it as fact. Many (perhaps most) professional biographers would strongly disagree. I couldn't help bursting into incredulous laughter when Joshi finally declares, "...on occasion one feels as if Lovecraft is having some difficulty shutting up."

In closing, I hope this book is re-released soon with S.T. Joshi's presence as a character, editorial opinions, emotional self-positioning and research experiences either cut entirely or summarized in an appendix or endnotes. Then it wouldn't hurt to have a professional book doctor rewrite with an eye to smoother prose and readability. THAT edition will be the definitive Lovecraft biography.

Clocking in at 654 pages, this sprawling biography will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about the horror scribe -- along with some things you'll wish you hadn't discovered, like how Lovecraft was a more zealous racist than was the norm in his day. Joshi is long-winded, for sure, like the grandfather who, when you ask him how the light switch turns the lamp on, proceeds to tell you the history of electricity, starting with two sticks being rubbed together. You'll be hard-pressed to remember all the details afterward, but the story of Lovecraft's life is smartly woven, divulging the world as viewed through the writer's eyes and those around him. Like a criminologist apt at identifying with a killer, Joshi truly seems to understand his subject down to the crumbs on his coat.

I love this book. I have read some of the chapters two-three times now and get something more each time. As an amateur woodworker, I don't fully understand what each tool can do yet dream of outcomes that the masters create. This book explains in simple terms the what, how and what should be for each tool, be it a hand plane, chisel, hammer, etc. Most of my other woodworking books that speak of tools only touch on how to sharpen and maybe adjust but not the how it does it and how it should perform. This book heads to the top of my stack to reach for when I need some tutoring on a particular hand tool.

This is a beautiful book, the moment I read the first chapter I was wishing I'd bought the hard copy so I could put it in pride of place on my bookshelf.
I loved the illustrations, which are on almost every page and give exactly the right amount of detail in a way that photos can't. But the best part is the author's wonderful writing style, which really conveyed a sense of the timeliness and pleasure of woodworking. Even when describing such mundane things as taking measurements, the author has a great knack of focussing on the human aspect of the process, the decisions that need to be made and the emotions that the wrong and the right decision evoke. This, to me, is the reason working with handtools it is such a satisfying pastime, and this book wraps up all of those experiences in a really beautiful way. Top marks.

Just beginning my adventure in woodworking, this book has done exactly as it claims in the back cover. It feels like I have a readily available experience woodworker in my pocket whenever I have a question about a tool. The explanation is clear like a craftsman would teach his apprentice, and because of this, the obvious question of what tool should I get first and what tool should be my next purchase is easily answered, without actually saying. The drawings make the book almost timeless, not dated by photos, and the diagrams are reminiscent of the technical sketch you may see on a drafting table. I purchased other books along with this, but keep referencing back to this book to answer my questions about what tool do I need for the next part of the job. The writing is easily explanatory and conversational at once, and is quite enjoyable to read. You can either read it in a linear fashion, from front to back, or you can choose the tool you have questions about (from the Table of Contents) and move directly to it to have your question answered.

Free bench plans if you've never built a workbench, are included. This is a book that could sell itself if you had a chance to open it up.

I don't gush over books very often but this is one of the best investments I have ever made. The illustrations are startling and the writing is clear and unadorned.

What Watson does very well is assume nothing with regard to his reader. He neither panders to the "old pro" nor is condescending to the "rank amateur." He just talks about how to use hand tools, how to think about hand tools and how to appreciate hand tools. I don't think there is a person doing wood working today who would not find something in here that makes them say "Oh, yeah..., that's a good idea."

I have spent quite a lot of money on the Taunton woodworking library and I value them highly. They are good books. But this one is the first one I pick up when I am just spending a few minutes sitting down or before drifting off to sleep.

One caution - this book is about "hand tools" and does include chapters on tools like "hand augurs" which very few of us use, however I have to admit I am tempted to buy one just because of the obvious pleasure this guy has in them. One of my quirks I suppose.

Watson has written a clear and concise user's manual for woodworking hand tools. He includes many of the basic hand tools that are overlooked (such as the brace and drawknife) in other hand tool books. I got more information out of Watson's clear drawings than I did from the beautiful photographs in Garrett Hack's "Classic Hand Tools" book. This book is meant to be kept in your workshop instead of on the coffeetable.