Atlantic Monthly Books

As a devoted amateur, vertebrate evolution is one of my hobbies, especially that of mammals. I am frequently the person my acquaintances come to, to ask questions about animals. Yet there were things in this book I had never heard of. Certainly the imaginary beast was one I hadn't heard of :D At first, my suspicion was that the one that the author claims would perhaps be named after him, would be imaginary. However, a little research on the web revealed that this animal exists, has since been named, and no, it isn't named after Tim Flannery. (A little web research easily revealed the true culprit, as well.)

The authors' sense of humor is not limited to the imaginary animal. There are other humorous notes, such as the Cape rain frog, which is included "because it is one of the silliest-looking creatures there is."

Another reviewer has already described the sections quite well, so I will not repeat that, but will just mention a few of the particular things that struck me about the contents.

A great many of the animals in the book are birds. I admit I don't know nearly as much about birds as I do about mammals, so I perhaps was more easily astonished than a regular birder might be. I also overdosed on birds a bit faster than someone who is fascinated by them might - I wanted to get on to the mammals. I found the inclusion of several different pheasants a bit repetitious, and likewise several different birds of paradise, but they are truly beautiful birds, and wanting more mammals is only my personal preference.

The illustrations are beautiful. I might have liked a few actual photographs, but many of these animals would have been difficult to photograph. I might also quibble with a few selections - pretty much everyone is familiar with the platypus, and many zoos now have colonies of naked mole rats. So, while interesting, these critters are no longer astonishing. On the other hand, some of the animals were truly astonishing: the curlew-jawed mormyrid, which looks an awful lot like an echidna for something that's a fish! And I really would not have believed in the existence of the dense-beaked whale if I hadn't gone to other resources and seen actual photographs of it. The stoplight loosejaw could give a person nightmares.

One of the really neat features is the exactly life-size pictures of the pygmy chameleon, the bee hummingbird, and the smallest bat in the world, along with the more-than-a-meter-long slender snipe-eel.

This book is often described as a "coffee table book" but it would make an excellent gift for any young person interested in animals and in need of a challenge to learn more about them, and whoever owns the book, child or adult, will leaf through it far more often than most coffee table books ever get opened.

Like A Gap In Nature, this book features stunning illustrations. Playfully, it would seem, one of the creatures portrayed in this book is a figment of fantasy and not a real "astonishing" animal. I have two criticisms, however. First, as far as I can discover, nowhere in the book is there any indication of which creature is the false one. Since I am not a zoologist, I would have to spend considerable time looking up all the creatures' names (except for those I already know of) in order to ascertain which one is the fantasy. And apart from the time, I dislike the game-playing that says "we're not going to tell you," since this means that if I can't easily discern (by referring to a certain page) which is the fake, then to my mind, each one I look at may be a fake. This undermines the point of the book, which is to help us see the wonder in real animals.

Second, there is too great a whiff of humanity-blaming, and above all of America-blaming in the statement that animals suffered from Agent Orange. Well, hello? Who started the devastating war in which Agent Orange was used? Exactly. But the aggressors--the Vietnamese Communists--are not mentioned; it is only America that is chided. In a book such as this, let's focus on the animals, please, and leave political clawing out of it.

_Astonishing Animals_ by Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten is an absolutely gorgeous coffee-table sized book, a work of splendid artwork and informative and occasionally humorous text. Producers of the similarly excellent _A Gap in Nature_, the authors this time concentrate not on animals that became extinct in historical times but living, odd, extraordinary animals, many of them quite unfamiliar to me and I daresay many armchair naturalists.

The first section is titled "The Vertical Terrain" and focuses on animals in mountainous terrains, specifically tropical mountains, which can have habitats varying from snow and alpine meadow at the summit to lowland jungle at its base. We meet in this section the Ribbon-tailed Astrapia of New Guinea, a bird of paradise with the longest tail feathers relative to body size of any bird (they are over three times longer than the bird's body). Similarly unusual is the King of Saxony Bird of Paradise, also of New Guinea; in this species the brow plumes of the male bird are over twice the length of the bird's body, looking somewhat like very oddly shaped huge antennae.

The second section is titled "Motion Specialists," and focuses on species that move in innovative and unexpected ways. The Mysore Slender Loris of India is a lemur-like primate of the thorny acacia forest, notably in that it moves in a slow, deliberate manner, always keeping grasp of the branches with at least three of its limbs, always from above, never from below.

The third section is called "Food & Feeding" and details animals with unusual diets and feeding techniques. We meet the Dingiso, a ground-dwelling tree-kangaroo (as contradictory as that might sound) discovered by Flannery himself in 1994 in the wilds of New Guinea. Delacour's Langur from the forests of central Vietnam is a beautiful but poorly studied primate, boasting a "pot belly" which contains a large stomach that is capable of fermenting the leaves upon which it feeds. The Curlew-jawed Mormyrid of South America is a freshwater fish with a long proboscis and the ability to generate its own electric field; both are used by the fish to find its aquatic prey, information from both is sent to its brain, the largest relative to body weight of any fish. Pesquet's Parrot of New Guinea looks more like a vulture than a parrot, with a bald-head and a long bill, though it does not feed on dead animals but the droppings of cassowaries (specifically the undigested fruits seeds within the feces).

The fourth section is "Shape-shifters," focusing on animals of unusual shapes and sizes. The Oriental Bay Owl of southern Asia looks like, when at rest, a broken, lichen-covered branch, all but impossible to see. The garish-colored Tomato Frog of Madagascar looks like a ripe tomato, an example of convergent evolution with the poison arrow frogs of the Americas. The authors produce life-sized pictures of the bumble bee-sized Kitti's Hognosed Bat of Thailand and the Bee Hummingbird of Cuba (which weighs only two grams).

Section five is called "Habitat Specialists" and deals with extreme specialists. The Marsupial Mole, Naked Mole Rat, Pink Fairy Armadillo, and the Star-nosed Mole are all striking examples of convergent evolution from different continents. The Sail-Tailed Lizard of eastern Indonesia is a sail-backed river-dwelling lizard, a poorly studied animal that may be a freshwater analogue of the Galapagos Island Marine Iguana. The Asian Giant Softshell Turtle, as its name might suggest, is not protected by a hardshell at all, something that was dispensed with for mysterious reasons. It is able to live in the polluted Ganges River and the canals of Canton and Jakarta, feeding on just about anything. The Yellow-Headed Picathartes of West Africa is a bald-headed bird that feeds exclusively on insects that breed in bat guano.

The final section is titled "The Vertical Ocean" and has some of the most unusual animals and evocative illustrations in the book. The stars of this part are marine animals from both the surface waters and the deepest abyss. The male Strap-toothed Whale and the Dense-Beaked Whale produce huge overgrown, curving tusks that when fully developed permit their jaws to only open a few centimeters (it is not known how the up to 7 meter long animals continue to feed). The Crested Basketfish has highly developed pectoral and pelvic fins that produce a virtual net in front of its head, a device that is believed to either sieve the water or to enwrap prey. The nightmarish Stoplight Loosejaw looks like as if it has had its throat coat; its jaws, stripped down to skin, bone, and tendons are constructed to allow for extremely rapid action. The Jellyfaced Spookfish of the very deep Indian Ocean (found two and a half kilometers below the surface) appears to have a head made of jelly, so transparent one can see the veins and arteries carrying blood to its brain and mouth.

The authors caution that one of the 97 animals in the book is imaginary; completely made up just for the book. Several times when reading about an animal I had to stop and wonder if that was the animal that existed on in the imagination. Was it the 34 millimeter long Pygmy Chameleon? The Bougainville Monkey-Faced Bat (found in the remote Solomon Islands, having evolved large, hard, pointed teeth and chewing muscles so powerful that their skulls have developed bony crests, enabling the animal to tackle even young coconuts)? Or maybe the Falanouc of Madagascar, once classified as an insectivore but now recognized as an unusual carnivore, a vaguely fox-like animal that lives in small family groups or solitarily on the forest floor, feeding on frogs and insects? A beautiful and informative book, I highly recommend it as this work does not focus on what some have titled charismatic megafauna (i.e. over-exposed and well- known animals like lions or giant pandas) but often quite obscure animals, all of which are beautifully illustrated.

As always, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon have produced a great selection of cryptics crosswords. Their clues have just the right amount of cleverness without being too hard to figure out. This book doesn't have any "regular" ones, they each have some kind of an extra twist, so they're all interesting. These have run in the Atlantic Monthly before, but it was before I started doing them in there, so I'm glad for this collection.

Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon create some of the most clever and fiendishly difficult cryptic crosswords around. Unless you are already skilled at solving conventional cryptic crosswords, this is not the book for you, since it does not have the several pages of solving hints usually provided as a preface to most cryptic puzzle books.

These puzzles originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly between 1986 and 1998. Each of these puzzles has an additional "gimmick" to it that makes the solving that much more difficult, such as answers that bend around the grid, unclued words, dropped/added/shuffled letters in the clues or answers, random order clues, and so on. If you love a challenge, these puzzles are for you. You will have a real feeling of accomplishment when you complete one.

This collection of cryptics depends on its inventiveness in the unique structures that the creators have developed for each puzzle. However, this hardly makes up for the forced and unimaginative definitions offered which, after all, is what cryptics are all about. For those of us raised on Henry Hooks' cryptic puzzles, this collection falls way short in humor, wit, joy of language, and the celebration of the enigma. After solving about a half a dozen of the puzzles, I have no desire to finish the book. Go with Hook or New York Times and enjoy.

I wasnt so sure when I got this book whether I would enjoy it or not. I was very pleasantly surprised. It is an eye opening book because it truly shows you how the street peddlars life must be in modern China. The main character is well defined enough for you to want him to better himself and as you read the book you curse him for making the mistakes which he could avoid. It is a depressing book but very realistic.
This book also opens our eyes to how difficult and unhappy life is for the comman man in China. It shows the mundane life of this boy who having spent time in jail wants to become a better person and tries to reform himself. This is also the point where this story becomes universal in the sense of small time criminals, or kids gone bad, who even with best intentions have a hard time following the straight path due to their past, poverty, no support, etc.
A great read, however, if you are looking for an upbeat or uplifting book, don't read this yet!

Little has been translated into English by Chinese writers whose novels are set in the 1990's. Liu Heng, author of the story which formed the basis for the film, Ju Dou, fills in much of that gap with Howard Goldblatt's excellent translation. A poignant, compelling novel of unrelenting realism, "Black Snow" portrays contemporary life in Beijing in stark and everyday terms. It is a masterpiece of insight into the neglected landscape of ordinary workers existing in extraordinary times. Somehow the mundane comes alive in Liu's writing. The characters are round and, therefore, believable, unlike so many we read in other novels by both exile Chinese and American writers. Nothing is predictable yet nothing is made sensational for its own sake to merely titillate the reader. My graduate students are reading it with keen interest here in Beijing and confirm its veracity. They even admit to having learned a thing or two about the lives of street peddlars in the process. The novel addresses the question of what happens when a disaffected youth attempts to redeem himself, not so much in the eyes of others, as in his own eyes. The finest novel available in English in this genre, in my opinion.

Life in China certainly can be difficult, but the same could be said for most parts of the world. Liu Heng's 1993 novel, BLACK SNOW, presents the world of Beijing as seen through the eyes of a miscreant, a rolling pin-wielding brawler who has just been released from prison and must find a place for himself in society. The main character, Li Huiquan, finds himself incapable of connecting with anyone, neither his neighbors nor his old friends nor any of the women he meets. Liu presents Li as emotionally stunted, a hate-filled and violent child in a man's body, as lacking in human warmth and sympathy as the totalitarian system in which he lives. Li Huiquan is also a mysogynist, simultaneously desirous, terrified, and hateful of women, living his romances as fantasies, completely disconnected from the real world. In American society, Li Huiquan could have become a rapist or serial killer. In China, he remains an adult virgin, clueless about how to relate to women and unable to comprehend what motivates them.

BLACK SNOW presents occasional interesting snippets of life in China, but most of the novel is interior dialogue, heavily freighted by Huiquan's repetitive musings about loneliness and the meaning of life. Many of his observations are trite, from the "Why am I the only one who thinks life sucks?" category of philosophical insight. Readers are treated to multiple variations on the same notions, that women are vain and superficial, that men only look out for themselves, and that friends are just users who cannot be trusted.

The main character is improbably twice orphaned, and the violent ending is so contrived as to make the entire story feel overly scripted. In places, Liu's prose offers promise, and a few characters such as the neighborhood police officer Liu Baotie stand on their own, as unique and original characters. For the rest, BLACK SNOW is a small step above a Chinese Ellery Queen or Dashiel Hammett, drawing a disturbing picture of a disturbed man struggling for existence and trying not to get pulled into the underside of Beijing life.

BLACK SNOW is an interesting read for the atmosphere Liu Heng creates, even if he does overdo it. Not many Chinese novels have dealt with the reality of such marginal existences, carried out at the edge of the law, so Liu's effort is intriguing even if the quality of the work is less than stellar. Novels by Su Tong and Mo Yan, and even Wang Shuo and Ha Jin, are probably better choices for first-time readers of modern Chinese literature, and those who want to read a nonfiction version of the dark side of Chinese life are advised to look into RED DUST by Ma Jian. Nevertheless, Liu Heng is a voice that deserves to be read, with the hope that more and better will follow in the coming years.

When I picked up this book, Cities by John Reader, I wasn't sure what I was going to think of it. I mean, c'mon, its a book about cities. But, I was pleasantly surprised. It is engaging book and one that tells interesting stories.

I really enjoyed the early portions of the book as it looks over the ancient cities and discusses how they were formed. My historical knowledge of ancient cities is sorely lacking, so it was interesting to read how organized these cities were and the structure that made up these cities.

The biggest complaint though that I had was that the story seemed to not quite know where to go from chapter to chapter. You begin by thinking the book would flow from ancient times and just progress to present time but it does not. It bounces back and forth from what goes into making up a city to plagues in a city to how to feed cities, etc. It often seemed disjointed.

The story telling though is very good. The facts and figures are interesting (it was interesting to read of the difficulties to get food/grain into Rome 2000 years ago and that there were over 6 million individual loads taken from the shores to downtown Rome to be able to feed the Romans). I wish the organization was a bit better, but the book was enjoyable nonetheless.

With a subject as broad and diverse in its scope, and is as potentially weighty as humanities' urban complexes, one would think a book of the same name would cover over 500 pages and be detrimental to simple leisure browsing -- not so: Cities is a lively, engaging, and vigorous revelation of just how cities evolved, what made them thrive or decline, and how they transformed themselves to cultural centers over the centuries. Contrary to popular belief, cities actually fostered the growth of farming and hold a symbiotic and close relationship with the countryside and trade routes: John Reader's Cities provides a map of changes and the social, political and economic connections between cities and country around the world. The lively format the author John Reader created for Cities makes for an exceptional historical coverage which lends particularly well to leisure reading.

This book seems to be getting good reviews, and to be honest I am not completely sure why. Let me begin with the good. It is an easy read and the story told is interesting. However this is not particularly a history and there are parts of the book that left me wondering what the point was. On the positive side, Mr. Reader begins the book with a particularly fascinating account of early cities beginning in Turkey and going to Sumaria.

From here though he gets lost. He devotes very little time to Greece and Rome and then seems to gloss through history. Some of what he relates, while interesting sheds little light on cities or their development. His chapter on Francesco deMarco Datini comes to mind first. It is an interesting story and I am sure he has something to do with the development of cities or lives in them, but I was left unsure what. Much could be told about the rise of Renaissance Italy and its city-states such as Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Milan. But little is offered.

Then there is his attempt to make political points. Sometimes it is pro-free market, sometimes pro-environment, sometimes it seems he is off to fight a battle against poverty that while maybe worthy, seems out of context. In fact at the end of many chapters he tries to bring in a modern point all too often. For example there is a chapter on the plague. It is interesting, but he never really explains how it was defeated in Europe. Instead we get some point on doctors and hospitals that seems to be a call for medical reform of some type. There is also a chapter on Hiroshima, which begins well enough and promises to hold interest. Questions like how did people live there after the bomb or how was the city rebuilt pop into my mind. From there he goes into a discussion of solar energy. What is the connection? What do we learn about the city in general or Hiroshima in specific?

In short, this book wanders so much in such a short space I would give it only 1 star, but the stories, even though off-topic are interesting so I give this book three stars but suggest anybody really trying to learn history start somewhere else like say Alexandra Ritchie's book on Berlin.

I was thrilled to get this book - autumn and winter are my favorite gardening seasons. I was hoping this would be a factual book, pumped with good horticultural information.

What I got was a sappy book full of romanticized gobbledygoock and poetic prose. If I wanted to read a fictional romance novel I would have done so.

If you want a "just the facts" let's get down to gardening type book, this is not for you. If you want a dreamy armchair book to read as you sip chablis in front of a crackling fire, whilst the snowflakes dance upon your frigid windowsill, then this may be for you.

I had checked out this book several years ago at the library and enjoyed it throughly. When I wanted to review it again it had been discarded!!!!!! I have been looking for it ever since Thanks to Amazon.Com it is mine at last!!!
The book fills a gardener with hope for this forgotten season. You have a glorious spring followed by a power summer and then ...........??????? Lacy shows how many plants can put on a daziling display at this time of year and gives pictures of landscaping ideas using these ground materials. The autumn plantings stay in the background until all others are perishing and fading then presto... your yard is glorious again.
It is hard to plan a garden in the south for three seasons but Lacy inspires one to try.

This is a wonderful book, especially for the gardener who has dreaded the end of the glorious growing season. After years of consoling myself with platitudes (after all, fall is just the harbinger of a new growing season...) Allen Lacy enabled me to see past the arbitrary definition of northern gardening as something confined to spring and summer.

It's safe to say that since I first read The Garden in Autumn in hardcover seven years ago that my garden and gardening have been totally revolutionized. No longer is the first frost (mid-September here in western Maine) a death sentence in my borders...in fact, I have multitudinous plants which now don't even begin to bloom until well after that time; asters, hardy chrysanthemums, hardy cyclamen, fall crocus. Some years I even have the last fall crocus blooming gamely, an iridescent eery blue, through the first snow fall.

Anyone who gardens in the northern tier of the United States and Canada, especially, will do well to allow Lacy to inspire him or her with the great beauty and potential of this "season of flame and fire and incandescence". The specifics are accurate and informed, the photography gorgeous, and Mr. Lacy's prose, as always, is a delight

Kill the Poor is not a bad read but it lacks any real impact. It is based around the adventures and conversations of folk in a particular neighbourhood, but not a lot happens and the characters are not well developed. I htink there are better books for your money.

I just finished working on a feature film based on this novel. It was a great experience. After I read the script, I read the book. Both are powerful, emotional, truthful and moving. The movie is going to be a wonderful piece of work. The book already is.

I really like this book. It's not like any other book I ever read. It is compelling all the way through. The title comes from a Dead Kennedy's song, and I didn't know what to expect when my friend gave it to me and said I had to read it, but it gets you into the struggle and lives of regular people on the lower edge of society who don't have much money or power or anything. It's up to the minute in that way, and political too, but what it really has that makes it special is that it has a rhythm in the writing that's almost like a song and makes you just keep reading and reading. It's really hard to put down. And there's such a wide array of crazy characters, both the heroes and villains, the author makes you see what they're up against, and how they fight each other, but it's really some one else they should be fighting. I think this is an important book. It's full of humor and insight, and it really makes you think.

In 1932 Agnes Newton was an ambitious--and by all accounts rather fetching--reporter on the payroll of the San Francisco Examiner. "And then, just as I felt the world at my fingertips, I became involved in a violent scene which nearly destroyed me." That is to say, she was fronted by drug addict wielding a two-foot length of iron pipe as she stepped from the Examiner Building one spring day to collect her lunch. Newton was beaten about the head repeatedly. "He didn't kill me, but during the ensuing years I almost wished that he had." She sustained partial memory loss, and: "Owing to the severity of the skull fractures I had lost all power to concentrate and my thoughts shifted about like a kaleidoscope, and trying to grasp an idea was like trying to pick up a piece of wet soap." Recovery was haphazard, a patchwork of part-time employment, casual travel, and fluctuating physical and mental states. In 1934 she was reacquainted with Harold Keith, an English friend of her brother who she'd had sporadic yet evidently significant contact with since the age of eight. "Several times in the past we had almost married each other, but each time events which I thought at the time were more important had occurred to prevent us. But as soon as we met again in 1934 we both knew that nothing more important than marrying each other could occur to us." They were married the day before Harold returned to British Civil Service duty. "My husband has been in Government service here in North Borneo for fourteen years. As well as being Conservator of Forests and Director of Agriculture he is Honorary Curator of the State Museum, Game Warden, collector of strange beasts for distant scientists, patron of pauperized natives, and the repository for unwanted animals. He collects old Chinese porcelain, writes papers on scientific subjects, is recording a Murut vocabulary, speaks Malay well enough to be distressed by mine, and cites Oxford English Dictionary to the confusion of my American."

Land Below The Wind is a vigorous retelling of Newton Keith's four years in North Borneo, led off with a detailed introduction of the day-to-day living conditions in this outpost of a shrinking Empire. All aspects are wrought with lovingly applied ink: the house staff (two Chinese amahs, Arusap, the Murut houseboy, a Dyak-Murut small-boy, and a Javanese gardener), the social faux pas that dot the road to interaction with others in the North Borneo Civil Service (at that time about seventy men, their wives and families), the coterie of pets (a particularly endearing account of various gibbon and orangutan, a tarsier, and the literally heart-breaking fate of the otters Niffles and Sniffles), the oppressive climate, etcetera--in all, Newton Keith embraces with love and gusto.

Newton Keith on occasion breaks with first-person narrative to pass along the stories of others, mostly natives for whom she always has an attentive ear. Among these is the story of the prisoner Abanawas, and the 'other side' of the tale that until then had been heard only from the mouth of white men--that of the mystery of Walter Flint, a white man who married the daughter of a tribal leader, only to be found beheaded sometime thereafter. In an especially absorbing tract the journey of Saudin, a tribesman of an isolated Murut village of the interior, is relayed. Saudin had been employed by a party of American film-makers traveling through Borneo. Because of his work ethic and trustworthiness he was retained, and accompanied them, in the capacity of animal caretaker, to New York where he was to assist with the care of animals after their presentation to the Central Park Zoo. Saudin, who was to stay in New York for three months, is at first escorted to and from the Zoo by the head of the film-making party, but after some time is allowed to make his way alone, insured somewhat by a letter stating who he is and at which hotel he's staying that has been deposited in his coat pocket (a letter he later loses). At the height of Saudin's induction to New World living is his experience of Times Square on New Year's Eve, that being the point at which I imagine Saudin believes he can be no further away from his prior understanding of a man's life. It's but one of the circumstances from which he makes observations no less acute than that of the most learned modern social commentators. On his return to North Borneo he visits his one-time employers, the Newton Keiths, at their bungalow: "His manner retained its old native courtesy, and his attitude in presenting his tale of America was that of a Marco Polo who scarcely expects his words to be believed." His words are believed however, and translated by Newton Keith in a fashion so that none of Saudin's awe and bemusement are lost. Although only seven or so pages in length, it was for the reviewer the book's most enjoyable read.

The reviewer's interest waned during one chapter only, that titled 'We Eat The Wind'. Newton Keith joins her husband on an expedition to the interior; it begins tantalisingly enough, with plans afoot to traverse the last stronghold of head-hunters, but it soon becomes apparent that the savages have more pressing concerns and shan't be souveniring heads this time around. From there the trip assumes only as much value that largely incident-free jungle travel can.

LAND BELOW THE WIND was first published in 1939. The title is employed to this day as the unofficial motto for the state of Sabah, Malaysia, the successor of North Borneo.

***1/2 stars.

Land Below the Wind by Agnes Keith is the first and one of the more famous books by this very successful author. Set in 1939 North Borneo (now the Malaysian state of Sabah) it autobiographically chronicles life of an American wife of a British official.

Keith relates the culture and circumstances of Sabah so well that my Sabah born and raised wife gives it two thumbs up. We have now read four Keith books between us and are awaiting the other three from Amazon Marketplace sellers. Good, clean, very humorous book. Even though written 65+ years ago it reads easy.

For my fellow Canadian readers - While Keith describes their nationalities as American and British, it seems that the couple might be better described as "Canadians" in modern thinking. They have a home in Victoria BC, to which they always return, and their son George later goes to school in Canada (during the Children of Allah years).

I have also read "Three Came Home" (the second book detailing the Keith family experience in several Borneo Japanese internment camps) and "Children of Allah" detailing the author's 9 years in Libya many years later. All three are excellent books.

The hardcover first editions all have very unusual fabric like covers printed to look like culturally significant fabrics. Therefore, the books look really good on the shelf too.

This book contains the early memoirs of Agnes Keith, wife of a British forestry specialist stationed in North Borneo in the 1930s. After graduating from UCLA, Agnes had worked briefly as a journalist, until a random violent attack had left her with severe brain damage. Towards the end of her several years of recovery, she was reacquainted with Harry Keith, they fell in love, were married, and headed straight for Borneo. In this book, Agnes Keith chronicles her experiences adjusting to life as the wife of a colonial government official in the Far East. She describes her house and its surroundings in Sandakan. She also writes about the members of her household, the domestic helpers, and their peculiar habits and histories. As part of his work for the Ministry of Forests, Harry Keith had to make periodic treks into the jungle to inspect the forests and delineate reserves. Agnes accompanied him on some of these trips, and learned to deal with the rigors of rain, river travel and leeches, all while enduring the sweats and shakes of malaria. By the close of the book, the Keiths are on their way back to the US for home leave (and preparing for Agnes' sequel, Three Came Home).

In this book, Agnes is very much a woman of her times. She likes to come across in her prose as being flighty, light-hearted and trivial, since such women were perhaps better liked than more serious types. By today's standards, many of her attitudes towards non-Europeans would be considered racist, but by the standards of her own day, her behavior was probably not very remarkable. She didn't flaunt her status as a Westerner, and did try to treat her domestic help decently. One of her biggest struggles was learning how to adjust her American customs to better fit in with the local colonial British society, of which she had suddenly found herself a member. Towards the end of the book, she has a run-in with the Japanese Consul, foreshadowing some of the horror to come that she was still blissfully unaware of when she penned this volume. All in all, this book is a light-hearted description of the leisurely life of a Western woman in colonial South East Asia in the golden pre-war era, yet at the same time, it is also the story of adventure trekking through the Borneo jungle.

Making the 1996 presidential election interesting and excitingis a difficult task. But Evan Thomas comes very close in this gem ofa book. It focuses not only on the Republican primaries and thegeneral election but also on the Congressional battles in 1995-96 that made Clinton's victory possible. Candidate media strategies are also explored. Thomas also provides insight and analysis throughout the book rather than just at the end like other authors have the habit of doing. These insights, especially concerning the birth of a "Small Deal" in government policy, are fair and accurate. For political readers interested in the 1996 presidential election come here.

"Back from the Dead: How Clinton Survived the Republican Revolution," is a crisp behind-the-scenes examination of how William Jefferson Clinton ultimately defeated a determined Republican Party. To this end, Clinton's extraordinary political skills and a smart move away from the left and to the soft center of American politics paved the way for victory.

Evan Thomas also cites three other critical factors..."it is the economy...stupid," the unpopular personality of Newt Gingrich and the polling genius of Dick Morris as helping Bill Clinton defeat Bob Dole. But the main theme of this book is that the former governor of Arkansas had an enormous appetite for work and an uncanny ability to communicate with the American people. Certain parts of the narrative is a passionate upclose account of Bill and Hillary Clinton as husband and wife as well as political partners. Other parts of this book looks at how the prospects for a second term were shadowed by the scandals of Clinton's first four years in office.

In the final analysis the "Comeback Kid," great man or not...did have a remarkable gift for politics and this won the day. Baby boomers had come of age, moved to the suburbs, borne children, and planted the seeds of a postmodern political agenda. They wanted a president that would help them cope with the cares of everyday life...work and family, schools and doctors, safe streets and clean water. The Republican Party offered a solid political platform but Bill Clinton's colorful promise of a "Golden Age" outlasted Bob Dole's plain "Black & White" strategy for America.

Bert Ruiz

This is one of Jon Jackson's first novels featuring Sergeant Mulheisen of the Detroit PD, if not the first. The plotting here is excellent; there are a lot of threads that Jackson knows how to interweave, giving this baby momentum. And once in a great while there's a genuinely funny line. The characters are nicely drawn, too. The fly in the ointment is the writing which can be occasionally clunky and awkward. If that doesn't bother you, then this is a nifty little police procedural that, for fans of the genre, will keep you going.

Mulheisen, portrayed as one of the cooler heads on the force, gets drawn into a few different crime threads. A mysterious intruder at the home of a young wealthy trucking magnate is killed by two patrolmen. Two thugs come into a local watering hole and shoot up both the jukebox and the cigarette machine, purportedly owned by the same young trucking tycoon. A great looking woman, a friend of the tycoon, lures Mulheisen with her sexiness and charm, and, later disappears. And a huge gun heist, coupled with a huge crash involving a runaway train, brings things to a head.

Lotta stuff going on here, but Jackson pulls it all together well. Mulheisen has to put the puzzle pieces together and does an admirable job, for sure. It's unfortunate that the choppy writing gets in the way; otherwise, it would rate at least four stars.

Your call.

This is an absolutely fantastic book. As an ex-Detroiter, I especially enjoyed it. Mr. Jackson writes one of the best humorous crime type books available. His information about Detroit is perfect, I guess he lived there too! I honestly hated to finish this book because I knew that it would take me a long time to find a novel that I would enjoy as much as this one.

This account of the first south-north crossing in Victorian times is incredible. A film of this story several years ago did little to change that situation. The story recounts the key attempts and the elaborate expeditions involved. The crux of the story really revolves around a series of many mishaps and oh so near misses. Tragedy was almost avoided numerous times but ultimately...well read the book. The fact that the story is known and accurately recorded is in itself an incredible sub-plot. It is hard to believe sometimes that this is a true story -- yet this is a case of real life being more amazing than one would dare write as fiction!

This account of the first south-north crossing in Victorian times is incredible. A film of this story several years ago did little to change that situation. The story recounts the key attempts and the elaborate expeditions involved. The crux of the story really revolves around a series of many mishaps and oh so near misses. Tragedy was almost avoided numerous times but ultimately...well read the book. The fact that the story is known and accurately recorded is in itself an incredible sub-plot. It is hard to believe sometimes that this is a true story -- yet this is a case of real life being more amazing than one would dare write as fiction! The story is quite detailed but hang in there, the threads all come together in an incredible finale.