Bartholomew Books

Sparrow writes clearly and convincingly that the news media does act as an institution rather than as individualistic reporters, editors, and publishers. Since they all face the same constraints, they react in similar fashion. Sometimes they act as media "watchdogs" and sometimes they act as media "lapdogs." Sparrow gives clear evidence of both types of behavior and explains why the news media assume such radically different roles depending on the circumstances. His chapter on when the media fail to act as media watchdogs is chilling reading. It should make us all wonder whether the media, on whom we rely as guardians of our interests, is really up to the task.

Uncertain Guardians is exemplary! It is well-written, for one, and because it contains so many first-person accounts and quotes, it comes across as rather entertaining. Not to mention it offers important new information on stories that is simply incredible (while a picture develops of news media as a business vs. a public-minded venture). By the way, reading Uncertain Guardians felt like listening to a former professor from my undergraduate days. I would bet on this book growing into a benchmark piece. An excellent read.

If you are an alternative-media type who thinks the establishment media use biased methods to choose, frame, and deliver the news, you will enjoy this book. It is an extensive indictment of national news coverage. If, however, you are a middle-of-the-road media consumer, you may well be put off by the author's left-leaning viewpoint. He considers the news media a monolithic institution whose reporting is guided by two overriding priorities: advancing its own interests, and protecting the political and governmental establishment. The author compellingly critiques the quality of political reporting: it is often superficial; not investigative enough; obsessed with personalities; covers winners and losers instead of substance. But when moves from the issue of quality to the issue of bias, the author is far less persuasive. He disagrees with the methods and standards of journalists, so he infers an institution-wide establishment bias. Yet when the author begins citing examples (e.g. the media's failure to unmask how a military's conspiracy caused the downing of flight KAL007), readers might find they stop analyzing the media's bias, and start analyzing the author's. I'm biased too - I work in the political division of one of the networks. But that's how I come to know that the author misunderstands how news decisions are made and how political coverage is shaped.

An interesting account of British women's role in the Mormon settlement of Utah was somewhat spoiled for me, as a British reader, by the author's lack of knowledge regarding the basic geography of England. We are confidently informed, for example, that Birmingham is a city in Lancashire, close to Liverpool. Unfortunately it isn't-the author has evidently confused Birmingham (England's second-largest city) with Manchester (third-largest). Didn't the author look at a map during her research?

I was terribly disappointed in this book. I teach construction law at a community college and was assigned to use this book my first semester. I'll not use it again. The organization of the information was questionable. Many statements contained in the book were flat wrong or presented only a misrepresentative portion of a bigger picture. Many key topics were completely unaddressed. I can say that where the book is correct, the information is presented in plain English and provides the student with useable information about the basics.

At first I was disappointed when I realized the book was written primarily as a teaching text for senior students in baccalaureate university programs in construction engineering or construction management. However, the book is so well written and full of case law references that I was immediately provided with excellent material for two in-process construction claims packages.

I read this book of Bartholomew Gill's without making reference to the reviews on this page. I am glad I did. Unlike the one review to be found here, I found this book to be great fun. What I find to be the strongest feature of Gill's writing is the way he presents his regular cast of characters. I really care about all of them a great deal. So while the mystery is fun, what really matters is to watch these characters in their interplay with each other and with the possible killers. The deceased deserved his untimely death and it does not really matter so much how he died. I was glad to see him gone. But the solving of the mystery and how that solution impacts of Peter McGarr and his co-workers is great fun. I have come late to the works of Bartholomew Gill and am going through them one at a time. "Death of a Joyce Scholar" is the one that I recommend to people the most so far, but "Ardent Bibiophile" will now be on this list. If you like Gill, this one will definitely not disappoint.

Strikingly different in tone from all the other Peter McGarr mysteries, this novel may have been a Gill experiment in the blackest of black humor. It's a curiosity in the McGarr series, a wicked piece of work with some truly disgusting scenes, perhaps an attempt to mock the pseudo-realism of other mysteries and/or film, or, more likely, an attempt to imitate the dark satire of Jonathan Swift, whose work is featured throughout this novel about the murder of a man who regarded himself as the Dean's reincarnation.

In the opening scene McGarr arrives at the estate of B.H.P. Herrick, the keeper of Marsh's Library of antique manuscripts in Dublin, finding find him nude and six days dead. With a sort of ghoulish glee, Gill describes the macabre scene in minute detail, omitting none of the putrescent details. Herrick was in the midst of a Frollick, "inspired by Swift," a lurid carnal escapade in which Herrick quoted lines from Swift and which he videotaped, unwittingly recording his own agonizing death from poison.

I concede that the book is clever, in that it incorporates some serious literary criticism about Swift's work, some of it obscure, in addition to discussions of Gulliver, the Brobdingnagians, the Yahoos, and the Houyhnhnms, and it does illustrate how the main character surrounded himself with the modern incarnations of these Swiftian creatures. However, Gill's additional remarks about "excremental verse" and the Freudians, along with additional scenes of degradation, keep this grim and grisly little novel firmly mired in depths most readers do not expect of this series and will not want to explore. 1 star for subject matter, 2 stars for cleverness. Mary Whipple

From the beginning of the series, Gill has experimented with his characters and plots in an effort to find his métier, gradually increasing his character development, narrowing down his settings by making them more "Irish," and developing increasingly complex plots. This novel, his fourth, unlike its two immediate predecessors (McGarr on the Cliffs of Moher, set largely in New York, and McGarr and the Sienese Conspiracy, set in Italy), is located entirely in Ireland, with all the action connected with the Dublin Horse Show. While the plot is complex, the characters are not, and the charming humor of later novels, such as Death of a Joyce Scholar, the eighth in the series, is absent.

Many threads develop simultaneously and go in different directions. An enormously talented young girl, Mairead Caughey, wants to become a concert pianist. Her mother, the murder victim, is the sister of an IRA member on the run, and both of them have lost their land to a greedy neighbor. Mairead's boyfriend, the son of a newly rich member of the Irish Dial, is a drug addict who may be involved in local burglaries. A major horse dealer, paralyzed in an accident, has staked much of his reputation on the success of his horses in the Dublin show, and his wife is slated to ride the horse which paralyzed him. A priest seems to have more than a passing interest in Mairead, and Mairead herself may not be who she appears to be.

To develop all these threads, Gill introduces innumerable characters, some of whom are connected to just one thread, and some of whom overlap. Because they are not developed, except superficially, their motivations are not always clear, nor are the reasons the action moves in the direction that it does. McGarr, McKeon, O'Shaughnessy, McGarr's wife Noreen, Ruthie Bresnahan, Hugh Ward, and the rest of the detective division of the Garda Soichana all make their appearances, but their characters remain static, since they appear only as police officers and not as developing characters.

A pure police procedural, the novel lacks the quirky characters of later novels and the very funny scenes that evolve from their interactions. The plot here, though complex and broad, is not very tight, the suspense diffused among too many plot lines. A fascinating novel for those who are interested in observing the development of the series, this novel (also known as McGarr at the Dublin Horse Show) is less interesting for its plot and characters than the novels which come later in the series. Mary Whipple

I read this book under its original title and it was good then and it will be good now. I knew the author and still know his brother, George. All of his books should be the basis for a television series shot on location. Mark was a master of words having been graduated from Brown University and then going to Trinity College Dublin. He knew of whence he wrote.

MY KIDS AND I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! Lethcoe's first book, You Wish, introduced the reader to the world of Benjamin Piff and the Wishworks Factory where birthday wishes are fulfilled. In Wishful Thinking, we meet Ben's "sweetly horrible" cousin, Penelope Piff who wants nothing more than to destroy Ben's happiness and the factory. What a great character!!! Ben and his friends risk everything to set the factory right. As we learn, the factory does not just fulfill simplistic birthday wishes...it gives hopes and dreams to children. WOW!!! This well-written and fun story (along with the first book) gently teaches children that good is worth fighting for. We can't wait for the next book.

"Wishful Thinking" offers up a weak and convoluted plot line with shreds of action that seem to end abruptly or simply go nowhere at all. It seems to be frantically chasing it's own tail hoping to eventually find a coherent story. No luck. Battle scenes are slightly more gruesome than in the first book and as a whole, it just doesn't live up to the expectation set by Book #1. If this book was meant to keep readers interested enough to buy the third book in this series, it doesn't.

The things in this book just didn't work for us. The gadgets look great in the book and my son was really excited to make them. But when the battery pack (which is the prerequisite for most of the other projects) didn't work, we started shopping around for another book.

Considering what we paid for this book, it meets our expectations. A bit difficult for a 8yr old. But helps to increase awareness about electricity amoung childrens.

This is a great book for a simple introduction to electronic gadget building. My son is always building and designing and this is giving him a way to do it with electronics.

I was anxious to get this book for my son who is a precocious builder. However, I was disappointed to see that the gadgets you can build were not described at the beginning of the instuctions. The gadget is named, then the building instructions begin. There is no description of what the gadget does, or how it works.

I was pleased to see that most of the items need to make the projects are easy to find, since my son already experiments with electricity. However, starting from scratch will mean a trip to the electronics store for most people.

I like it. It's a pretty tough book. I'm eight years old and I've been able to make almost everything in the book on my own. There's a supply list in the front and we've found most things at Radio Shack. The instructions are kind of easy to follow. It's hard work, but it's worth it.

Like so many sequels this one does not come up to the par of the first. The first book made you like Hoare, this book he finally gets his own command and it is interesting, BUT the author starts into silliness. He has this French spy network using pagan worship to draw followers and cover their crimes? Doesn't link up. Also the reason for the killings is not believable. The are killing officers to attempt to decapitate the British Navy? How silly. Someone is going to get wise when the 3,123 captain shows up without his head don't you think?

The author attempts to link a story across 3 books and does very well with that, but as I said should have rethought some of the aspects.

The Royal Duke's crew is very good though.

Read the first book and stop

This is worth a read if you enjoy the Patrick O'Brien/Hornblower/Alexander Kent genre. My
only real problem with this book is that the
heroes of all 3 of those series either make
appearances or are mentioned here, along with
a Capt. Marryatt. It just seemed a cheap sort
of ploy to me. Still, it's not a BAD book,
it just appears as if the author gleaned most
of his info from reading other authors' work.

Though better paced and written than the prequel, the second Hoare book still had problems.

The author created a character with an interesting disability: the incapacity to speak above a whisper. Unfortunately, throughout the book, Hoare spoke. It would have been intriguing to see him resort to gestures and so on. Instead, the disability was basically ignored.

The rather nebulous plot involved some hard-to-believe-in Satanists and a threat to the British Navy which Hoare had to defuse with the help of an unseaworthy crew of intelligence agents and bluestockings. The plot seemed to wander, and though it was better paced than the first book in the series, it still lacked focus.

Perkins, in this book, essentially paid an homage to Patrick O'Brian -- mentioning one of his characters by name and repeating a joke (the one about the weevils). I trust that Perkins' editors took care of any legal issues there may have been. I was uncertain how I felt about this. On the one hand, I like homages and the sense that books by different authors somehow take place in the same world. On the other hand, I like it better when it's done less blatantly.

Overall I would say that this book, like the one preceding it, had some interesting points but did not attain a very high standard.

Napoleon totally controls France and threatens to do likewise with the rest of Europe. A desperate England declares the Emperor an enemy of the state. The nation's militia engages the forces of Napoleon on land and at sea. British Royal Naval Officer Bartholomew Hoare remains on land because an injury that occurred while fighting for his country has left him mute. Though he has accepted his fate, he is pleasantly shocked when his superior names him as the Captain of the Royal Duke.

The entire crew of the Royal Duke is different from what normally sails the seas. This group consists of special men and women with mental abilities that enable them to break the French secret codes as well as other specialized tasks. When two naval captains are found dead inside the Nine Stones Circle, a Stonehenge-like edifice, he begins to investigate what happened.

HOARE AND THE HEADLESS CAPTAINS is a historical maritime mystery that showcases the Navy's role in the war with Napoleon. Wilder Perkins examines their tasks in minute detail, but aptly fits this inside his main story line. The hero is a fascinating person who has overcome the handicap of a crushed vortex and the depression that followed. With this novel and HOARE AND THE PORTSMOUTH ATROCITIES, Mr. Perkins, who passed away last year, proves that he was a talent who entertained yet educated his audience.

Harriet Klausner

It is necessary to read book 1 of the trilogy, "Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities," before reading this novel in order to understand the storyline. This story is set in October and November 1805. Hoare has been promoted to commander and finds himself in command of an unusual ship, the Royal Duke, with an unusual crew (including several women - women were not unusual in a crew, see John Nicol's biography). He is in charge of "special investigations" which includes naval intellegence services.

The discovery of two murdered Royal Navy captains plunges Hoare into intrigue involving British traitors and unknown French agents. Hoare is still handicapped by an inability to raise his voice above a loud whisper, but he can whistle and he can pass commands through a loyal lieutenant aboard the Royal Duke. He has an unfortunate encounter with H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland, a desolute rogue (the royal family receives some unflattering descriptions). Events lead to the disposal of some enemies, but the continuation of the story is left to the third novel of the trilogy, "Hoare and the Matter of Treason."

The author has a bad tendency to forget details as the story proceeds. In the previous novel, Lieutenant Kingsley is shot while in confinement. In this novel, it is stated he was hanged. Also, four roughs captured in the novel become two in number by the time they are turned over to authorities. The gratuitous mention of James Aubrey is out of place. The ficticious Aubrey is referred to as a "successful frigate captain," but in O'Brien's series of novels Aubrey's early success (prior to 1805) was as a commander in a sloop - as was the real life Commander Lord Cochrane who served as the model for the fictional Aubrey. The novel lacks a map which would have been helpful.

I bought this book primarily for the Correa illustrations that are included in the book. The illustrations in the book are reasonable reproductions but are definetly not as good as I was hoping for. If you're buying this book for the illustrations be aware they are about the quality you would find in a 1950s text book.

If anyone knows of any other places to get decent reproductions of the Correa images please let me know.

Not much needs to be said here about the story of this truly perennial classic. The War of the Worlds (1898) is the account of Martians invading earth, attacking and ruining London. What happens to the rest of earth and mankind is not resolved till the very end. Although this novel was seen as the start of modern science fiction, it had also a deeper meaning of fighting tyrannies and the occurrence of mass-hysteria.

This deeper meaning was clearly shown when Orson Wells broadcast in 1938 an extremely believable radio dramatization. Listeners thought that Martians were actually attacking and in panic they left their homes trying to escape this terrifying experience. It is interesting to note that that broadcast happened at the eve of World War II.

Now in 2005, a new movie adaption has just been released by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise. While I'll leave it to movie critics to evaluate that movie, it has already received wide acclaim for its special effects. Something else interesting to note is that in the early scenes of the attack by the Martians, the children of the character played by Cruise question whether these are attacks by "terrorists". In an era where we are sandwiched in time by 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and further terrorist attacks in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid and London, the world seems again in the grip of fear, of wars and of mass-hysteria. One could wonder if The War of the Worlds in 2005 again will create or foresee further scares in the world.

What makes this edition of The War of the Worlds so worthwhile is not just the inclusion of the classic illustrations by Henrique Alvin Correa, but also the introduction by Robert Bartholomew. Bartholomew is a leading expert on panic attacks, media manipulation and mass delusion, and he puts this book in historical and contemporary context. He tries to answer why this book has "created" such a scare in 1898, in 1938 and maybe again in 2005, or is the scare in all of us us calling this book into everlasting existence? I rate this edition 4 stars, and just wished that the publisher had considered releasing a hard cover edition.

I bought this edition of H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds" because it uses the classic Corea illustrations. Though the illustrations are well reproduced they are inserted in a totally random fashion; with no connection to the sequence of events in the story!!! Anyone reading this story for the first time will be very confused. Here's an instance: the illustration of the opening of the Martian cylinder appears in the second half of the book!!!

It is very disappointing.

The late Bartholomew Gill's DEATH OF AN IRISH CONSUL is the 6th
Peter McGarr mystery I have read, and the one I have liked least.
Obviously I enjoyed the first five. I would hardly have gotten to the 6th
if I hadn't.

In this book McGarr goes off to the U.K. and to Italy after two retired, British
civil servants were mudered in Ireland. The prospect of a third murder
causes McGarr to travel to the Continent, where much of the action
takes place.

The story is too complex to suit my tastes; and Gill wrote too many
characters into it. Apparently the author or publisher thought this might
be a problem. The long list of characters is set out just ahead of the
first chapter. All things considered, I view this work as being too
ambitious for a moderately-light, detective novel. I nearly stopped
reading it when half-way through, but because of my satisfaction with
previously-read McGarr stories, I persevered to the end. The last half
did not cause me to change my opinion of this book.

Though I am not saying good things about IRISH CONSUL, I intend
to read more of Mr. Gill's "McGarr" books on the liklihood that I'll enjoy
the next five as much as I did the first five.

Published as McGarr and the Sienese Conspiracy in 1977, this early McGarr mystery, newly reprinted with a new title, is most unusual in that it takes primarily in Italy, not Ireland. Here Gill captures the mounting tension, the rich pageantry, and the centuries-old traditions of the Palio in Siena with the same kind of lush, colorful description and eye for detail one has always admired in his Irish settings, making this frantic horserace around the piazza sound as thrilling and irresistible as it must be in reality. The fact that the former chief of SIS, now Ambassador from the UK to Italy, is shot down before McGarr's eyes during the race certainly dampens McGarr's enthusiasm about his return to Italy, where he had previously served with Interpol for five years. He was supposed to be guarding the Ambassador.

This is the third such murder of a former SIS chief in the space of two weeks, the first two having occurred on a country farm on the windblown shores of the Dingle peninsula at the southernmost tip of Ireland. Leaving the Irish investigations to others, McGarr delves into the Siena murder, which is connected to an Italian oil company drilling for oil off the coast of Scotland, disputed oil claims, the leader of the Italian Communist party, and shady relationships between politicians, the police, and cutthroat oil executives. Siena with all its radiant splendor, its Italian palazzos, its exuberantly described food, and its Beautiful People with their romantic dalliances and smug self-confidence offers sharp contrasts with the site of the earlier Dingle murders, where some residents still cook over peat fires and haven't quite figured out how to use the telephone.

Lovers of the McGarr series will enjoy the complexity of this mystery despite its differences from the rest of the series. McGarr is as psychologically acute and as insightful in his interactions as we have come to expect, in addition to being as quick to abandon by-the-book procedure in the name of justice. Many detectives from the Garda station in Dublin who make the later mysteries so vibrant have not yet been introduced to the series, however, and the women (including McGarr's wife Noreen) tend to be stereotypes (doing a lot of shopping and staying almost completely in the background). Some ethnic insensitivity, including slurs and racial stereotyping not present in the rest of the series are startling here. The new title, too, is a mystery--Cummings, the victim, is the Ambassador from the UK to Italy. He is not an Irish Consul at all. Mary Whipple