Bradford Books

As a general account of the Siege of Malta, this book represents a good introduction for those not acquainted with this extraordinary event of the Second World War.

Sulieman the Magnificent laid siege to Malta in 1565 and Bradford "antiphonally" balances this event with the twentieth century action; a literary device which works well here as many of the factors determining the outcome of the first siege were present at the second.

A fundamental commonality was the very individual character of the Maltese people and whilst the author includes this, it is a rather skeletal inclusion. This is surprising since he lived in Malta for a number of years and had the opportunity to delve below the superficial sophistication of Sliema and Ta'Xbiex to expose the complexities of the Maltese sub-cultures so contributory to the successful outcome of these events. Nicholas Monsarrat's "The Kapillan of Malta" does much better in this regard.

Similarly, whilst mention is made of Lt. Gen. Sir William Dobbie, veteran of the Boer War who came out of retirement to become Governor of Malta, little is recorded of the tremendous efforts made by this man to support his beleaguered protectorate; efforts which in many respects paralleled those of his illustrious 16th. century predecessor, the Grand Master de la Valette. In fact, there is a curious absence of sympathetically human material throughout the book.

Whilst Ernle Bradford covers the saga of Operation Pedestal, forever known to the Maltese as the "Santa Marija Convoy" and unquestionably one of History's great events, the narrative is disappointingly bland. Ian Cameron's "Red Duster, White Ensign" is a much more worthy account of this desperate exercise and tribute to the incredibly brave participants, notably Captain Dudley Mason, GC.

Nevertheless, the book is a well-presented portrayal of the geo-political background, the hardships, privations, valour and stubborn resistance of those engaged against overwhelming odds in the defence of these small islands. This is an inspiring subject deserving to be familiar to everyone and a reminder of the personal sacrifices made to achieve what we have today. Sadly, it has been played down in the consciousness of younger Maltese as it did not suit the political conveniences of Prime Ministers like Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.

There was the Siege of Troy, the Siege of Leningrad and other notable events where one opposing force laid siege to either a city or, in the case of Gibraltar (which endured 13 sieges throughout her colourful history), a country. The Siege of Malta, however, is not one of those which springs readily to mind and is, therefore, often overlooked.

At the time of World War Two, Malta was in a vitally strategic position. Bearing in mind the limitations of both air and sea power at that time, ships and aircraft operating from Malta were able to assist with the re-supply and support of British troops fighting in North Africa. Her aircraft could also seek and destroy those enemy ships wishing to do the same for opposing German forces.

Had Malta fallen, there is no doubt that the British 8th Army in North Africa would have been defeated and Rommel victorious. In addition, throughout this time of conflict, Axis aircraft commanded the northern shores of almost the entire Mediterranean Sea. In spite of British naval superiority on that sea, those aircraft made re-supplying the beleaguered island of Malta almost impossible. Indeed, there was a time when Malta was within 30 days of surrender.

This book tells the story of the Siege of Malta and tells it very well indeed. In a thoroughly researched work, the author skilfully takes the reader through the events which shaped Malta and the War in the Mediterranean from 1940-1943. The story of Operation Pedestal is recounted in great detail where the tanker "Ohio" finally reached Malta when 9 ships from her original convoy of 14 were lost. So vital was this ship's cargo that the Royal Navy threw everything they had into the defence of that convoy. Consequently, the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, cruiser HMS Manchester and light cruiser HMS Cairo were all lost and the cruisers HMS Kenya and HMS Nigeria put out of action.

This account of the Siege of Malta is as good as they get and will do much to give that siege the full recognition it truly deserves. When you read this story you will begin to understand exactly why King George VI bestowed Britain's highest award for gallantry on the people of Malta - for all they had endured and the way in which they had rallied to the cause throughout this most turbulent time in their history.

NM
Retired British Army major.

Ulrich Luz gives full weight to the idea that Matthew wrote his Gospel as a *story* of Jesus, with the purpose of conveying a theological message to its intended readers. The story has a developing plot, inviting us to read it as a whole, not in isolated parts. Therefore, Luz has chosen in principle to trace the story and its implications from beginning to end, rather than attempt to organize it systematically by topic. Here are a few glimpses into the study:

Luz does not apply the categories of literary criticism (implied author, narrator, etc.), but his narrative approach accommodates theological statements such as, "The Immanuel motif shows that Matthew's Christology is narrative in character. The presence of God can only be related and testified, not captured in concepts." And, "[I]n the *story* of the man Jesus, God *acts* [author's emphases]."

Reading the Gospel in its entirety uncovers signals, key words and other textual clues that enable Luz to propose, for example, a history of the Matthean community, a hypothetical outline whose "function is to kindle the historical imagination and elicit further outlines." Matthew's story, he tells us, is "inclusive", meaning the experiences of the historical Jesus as narrated in the Gospel mirror and include the experiences of the contemporary community. This applies not only to the narrative as a whole, but also to its particular elements, such as the miracle stories: Luz cites the calming of the storm (8:18-27) as a story that in itself is inclusive. "Its concern is not only the historical Jesus, but at the same time the present 'Lord', who will accompany the community to the end of time."

Although Luz mostly proceeds according to the sequence of Matthew's story, he does include from time to time a "systematic" section. An excellent example is in Chapter 4 where he interpolates a section on the Son of David, the Messiah, as a worker of miracles accepted by the simple people but rejected by the Pharisees. Yet even here, he concludes by pointing out that this serves to advance the story's plot of conflict with Israel.

Among the distinguishing marks of Matthew's theology is the theme of judgment, which makes its first appearance in the Sermon on the Mount, then threads its way through the rest of the narrative. Although it is tempered by God's mercy and generosity, Luz has no inhibitions calling it a judgment of works. "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down." To his credit, Luz does not try to harmonize Matthew with Paul. It is not exactly "by works" versus "by grace alone"; nevertheless, Luz senses "a profound tension ... perhaps even an abyss" between the writings of these two figures of the New Testament. Other scholars have written of "diversity within the unity" of the NT.

Luz is compelling in his discussions of mission and discipleship, callings that are of the essence of Matthew's community. He also examines the parables ("they ask to be lived, not to be grasped by the intellect"), the Church (in Matthew's understanding, the disciples with whom his community identifies), eschatology, turning to the Gentiles and other topics as they occur in the narrative. The final chapter includes sections on "Matthew and Jesus", "Matthew and Paul", "Matthew and Church History", and "Matthew and Christians Today". The book is thought provoking and worthy of its eminent author, but rather brief. Luz discusses some of the topics in more detail in his excellent collection of papers, Studies In Matthew.

A much better treatment than this series' respective book on Mark, this book on Matthew succeeds in grasping an essence of Matthew's thought-patterns and setting.

While most books in this series have a very contrived structure - introduction and backgroud, theology of, book and NT, book and today - Luz instead presents Matthew's theology in the context of its plot, realizing the necessity of integrating the story to the theology. As becomes clear, Matthew's focus is on discipleship and what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus (according to him). The grapplings of Jewish Christians with the Gentile mission, of observance to and relevance of the law for their life, and the importance of "works" are all themes elucidated clearly by Luz.

In the end, Luz tackles the problem of relating Matthew's works orientation to Paul's justification by faith in more than an adequate manner, although any such "solution" is always incomplete.

Overall, the book is well written and thought out and clearly followed. The only difficulty with the book was sometimes trying to follow the somewhat awkward wording of the author as it has been translated from German into English. But don't let this dissuade you - this book is worth buying.

Aimed principally at the student and researcher working in cognitive neuroscience, this book reports the findings of the "Visual attention and cortical circuits" workshop held on Catalina Island, USA, in 1999. Its primary focus was to bring together a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to inform a better understanding of visual attention processing in the cerebral cortex. Some fourteen contributions are collected here, addessing the long standing implications of dorsal versus ventral stream visual processing, and, of more recent interest, the functional significance of the (often reciprocal) connections now known to exist between temporal, parietal and frontal cortical neurones. Appropriately illustrated throughout with task paradigms and experimental data presentations, it is perhaps surprising that this volume contains only one putative cortical circuit diagram [Tsotsos et al.] in an attempt to show the ways in which variously proposed cortical areas might be critically connected in support of their role in visual attention and/or its modulation.

Although it has been clear since the demonstration of Yarbus (1967) that we employ quite different brain circuitry when ?looking for?, as opposed to ?looking at? something in our visual field, I have never felt that the physiological significance of this observation has really been considered prior to single-cell recording from the awake, behaving monkey. At least nine of the contributions to this volume (both imagers and electrophysiologists, from human and monkey labs) explicitly argue for the existence of top-down, context-dependant, task effects of attention. One way or another, this amounts to claiming that at least some ?late? (typically frontal cortex) visual processing activity can be shown to be affecting the response properties of ?early? visual processing neurons, including primary visual cortex (V1), V2-V4, and extrastriate areas MT & MST. One clearly emerging story to be taken away from this book, is that traditional claims for the visuomotor system operating largely via unidirectional, monolithic ?Retina > RGN > V1 > V2... > frontal cortex? pathway models must be discarded. Recurrent, massively parallel cortical circuits are the order of the day here.

Throughout its middle six chapters, the results of visual attention experiments using monkey single-cell recording is variously interpreted as providing evidence for the biasing of response competition amongst early visual input neurons [Duncan; Reynolds & Desimone], their possible gating [Heeger et al; Tsotsos et al] and other modulations of their activity [Ito et al; Maunsell & MacAdams]. Several authors have now expressed support for Schall?s notion of the frontal eye-field area potentially serving as a task-based "saliency map" for the purpose of supporting both the selection and preparation of visually-guided action [Thompson et al] and a similar model is proposed to underlay visually-guided search [Sperling et al]. Others rightly encourage our caution lest we forget the necessarily constraining architectures of bottom-up processing, upon top-down operating pathways [Braun et al; Pouget et al].

The problem space for attentional research has always been one largely concerned with determining how the cortex selects and locates targets from a potentially infinite candidate array of such targets for focused consideration. Furthermore, attention experiments must be conducted in the face of limited processing capacity and with reference to one?s ontogenetic life-history of experience and learning with any number and variety of tasks. There are no surprises amongst the results presented in this book emerging from the studies of (visual) attention as reported, but it does provide for a useful review as to some of the current thinking ?outside the box? of the old monolithic pathways. However, and more importantly, it also warns that we must continue to explore the neural bases of behaviour bearing in mind that the subject?s task understanding, and the context(s) in which their tasks are presented, will necessarily affect the very cortical circuitries we are attempting to characterise. Fortunately, this holds true as much for the researcher?s brains, as it does for the brains of their research subjects, and for the fine details and anatomy of the neural circuits themselves, we must be content to await the reports of future workshops.

Attention is a hot topic in the cognitive neurosciences, and although there are many other much more comprehensive collections (The Attentive Brain), this book adequately illustrates the level of specificity aquired in the field of the neural bases of attention. The topic concentrates on visual attention, for the now commonlly expressed reason that the primate visual sistem is the best understood neural sistem in perception. This makes the probing of attention easier, for its effects on the visual sistem can be generalized to the mechanisms of attention in general.

The articles are all good, and many general issues arise. Attention depends on distribuited neural sistems, it can exert strong effects on the firings of neurons in many levels of the proccesing hierarchy, attention both increases firing of attended stimulus responsive neurons and decreases activity of the surround, or unattended receptive fields.
These general observations, among others, point towards where the researchers are starting to converge theoretically. Practically, however, one still finds the common inconsistencies. For example, in chapter 1 the author finds parietal activity in the selection of attention, but no frontal activity, while in chapter 4 the author finds frontal activity but no parietal activity. One could reconcile this observations by postulating that both parietal and frontal areas can select for attention (the view I prefer), but still these discrepancies say something about the field at large.

The papers deal with common issues from different prespectives, and use various methods. There are chapters on cognitive aspects, neural aspects, perceptual aspects, theorethical and even a computer neural network simulation. That one can find any agreement at all tells us that progress is being made.

This text was comprehensive and scholarly in its approach. Each chapter provides a very balanced view of research on ageism from definitions and developmental origins to effects on medical practice and portrayals in the media. The presentation of research findings integrated into each chapter was effective, interesting and current. A "must have" reference text for anyone interested in this topic.

This books was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner award in 1991 and as I read it I was amazed I had never heard of it before. It tells the story of Grace Brush, a girl trying to stay sane in a world of migraines, halucinations, and famliy secrets. The language is lush and carefully conceived, inviting the reader into the mind of a young child as recalled by a smart and generous adult. This is not easy going - the story is heart-breaking - but it is well worth the time.

A double cheeseburger is not particularly nutritious, but when you're hungry, and in the mood for one, it can be satisfying. Such is this book, no. 281 of what may be an infinite number of Harlequin romances.

Juliet Cavanaugh is a pragmatic lawyer looking for a child but not a husband. Brady Talcott is a smart, intelligent entrepreneur looking for a quickie marriage in order to satisfy a clause in his father's will. A match made in Harlequin! The outcome of this romance is never really in doubt, but the story is well-told. Perhaps my prurient and adolescent mind would have preferred more explicit lovemaking scenes, but that's probably a flaw in the reader and not the author, I think you'd agree. Anyhow, enjoy the book for a quick and satisfying romance read.

Basic camping skills from an old fashion approach but still useful. If you are looking for a frugal way to take an extended camping trip or looking to set up a home in a cabin away from it all and you are just getting started this is a great book. If you are the been there and done that camper this book will not prove very useful. Some of the equipment talk is outdated (i.e. tents, lanterns) but who needs a tent when you can make a lean-to which is covered in this book. Parts of the book include: "Getting Ready to Take Off", Choosing Where and How to Go", Learning the Tricks of the Camping Craft" (the largest part and in my opinion the most useful part) and "Being Set for the Next Time". Back in the day this book would have definately been rated as a 5 star but I gave it 4 stars only because of its partial outdatedness. Although I'm a relatively experienced outdoorsman and the book covers mostly basics, I still managed to pull some useful pointers from this 35+ year old book! Happy camping!

These are my notes for whether or not this would make a decent film adaptation:

When a newspaper story on local missing persons dredges up the name of the horrible Terry Skinner, BILLIE MORGAN has to deal with the burden of knowledge of her part in his murder, while continuing to be the concerned family friend to his widow, JASMINE, and son NATHAN. While Billie fears that her crime will be found out, the consequences of her actions haunt her in an entirely different way, playing out in the wrecked lives of Jasmine and Nathan who she has come to love dearly.

Boiled down to it's bare essentials, "Billie Morgan" is a story about consequences - not the accepted consequences that society tries to impose, like Jail, but the true, human fall-out of our actions. There is never more than a suggestion that Billie might end up in jail for her crime, and while Billie has a certain amount of fear at the chance she will, we see her keep her secret for the welfare of those around her, even those who have rejected her, more than for herself. The real issue is actually hit upon by the scandal seeking newspaper the Clarion, when they write about the `Disappeared' - those who Society, and therefore the authorities, don't care about because they don't fit a certain type - middle class, blonde, white... "Billie Morgan" is about the underclass who operate outside the System, and for whom the justice imposed by the System isn't justice at all.

Billie herself is a great female protagonist - perhaps not the greatest in a long while, as the Kirkus review said, but definitely a compelling and complex heroine. Perhaps her greatest asset is her honesty with herself, thus becoming more human, more relatable, and allowing the reader to admit their own dark secrets to themselves - that maybe, just maybe, they would have done the same thing in Billie's situation and unwittingly murdered a man.

As much as Billie is a character who jumps off the page and brings the story alive, the dialogue is so specific and well written; it does a lot to give flavor and character to the story in its own right. Joolz Denby writes the dialect of the lower-class North-Eastern Brit with ease - and while such efforts - for example the Scottish brogue of Irvine Welsh - can often be confusing to the reader, there didn't seem to be any such complications here. For a movie adaptation, maintaining the dialect would be as essential to the characters and place as a Southern U.S. accent would be to a film set in rural Mississippi.

The film version would probably have to start somewhere about the middle of the book, and work the two time periods together, using the frame of the newspaper's research to bring out the back story.

The film version of this book would have a lot of the important ingredients necessary for a successful film - murder intrigue (although we know who did it, the why and the how of it is withheld until the end), sex, drugs, danger, family skeletons - and social commentary. There will be difficulties in translating much of the novel's internal world in to a cinematic medium, but not so much as to be insurmountable. The real downside may be that a film set among the urban poor in the U.K. may be a world that does not have a large appeal to American audiences without glamorizing certain aspects of that world, and thus compromising some of the thematic elements of the book.

Readers that have read Roland Wauer's "A Birders Mexico" will enjoy this guide to all the islands of the Caribbean. This book is primarily aimed for birders and nature or eco-tourists. It is a joy to read and after getting it out again this morning to review it during breakfast I was almost late for work as it was hard to put down. It was also very difficult to make the transition from his discription of the Island of Monteserrat to my driving in the snowy cold morning to work.

This 238 page book is packed from cover to cover with information on the birds, forests, plants, and history of the Caribbean Islands with photographs and excellent pen and ink drawing of endemic island birds by Mimi Wolf. There is a checklist of 161 Island bird species in the first section of the book and an excellent list of references in the back. There is a chapter devoted to each island. Wauer walks you around the best natural areas of the islands recounting his personal visits there and the sights he encountered with his keen observation skills and rich knowledge of natural history. If you are a birder, or ecotourist this book will give you very convincing reasons to plan a trip and if you have already bought the tickets it will rachet up your excitement over it.

The only shortcoming of this book is the lack of maps or specific instructions to the parks and reserves mentioned in the book. A good compliment to this book would be Wheatly and Brewer's "Where to Watch Birds in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean" which has all the specific lists, maps and directions you would need. If you don't get this book (A Birder's West Indies) you will though miss out on a more literary and rich reading experience of the islands.

Bradford's Crossword Key Dictionary is another fine aid to both solvers and setters. A hefty paperback with 1174 pages, it boasts a comprehensive list of words. Its 390,000 entries are organised into chapters according to the length of the word (from four to fifteen letters) and sorted according to each letter position within the word. The method takes a bit to get used to but after a while it is easy to use. It means that the 4-letter words are entered four times, listed alphabetically according to the first letter, then the second letter and so on. Thus FRAB comes after FOZY in the first section, after ERYX in the second, after FOAM in the third and after FORB in the last. Of course, this means that the 15-letter words are listed 15 times.

What it means to the solver is that it is easy to find a word when you only have a few letters. If you only have the fourth and last letters of a ten-letter word it is a simple matter to find all the words that match and to choose the best match. It is far easier than trawling through Chambers. The book claims to be based on 20 dictionaries that they publish - Collins, I suppose. It proved to very efficient in finding words to complete a Guardian blocked puzzle.

Anne Bradford is a crossword solver with much experience of solving Ximenes and Azed puzzles. She has kept notes of all the clues that she has encountered in 40 years of solving. This is why her Crossword Solvers' Dictionary is such a superb aid for solvers. Unlike many other crossword dictionaries, hers includes lots of rare and unusual words.

The real test for solvers of Azed or the Listener puzzles is whether the Crossword Key Dictionary includes all those obscure words. Using this month's Azed competition puzzle there were at least four of the answers that were not in this book. Then I compared pages at random against the entries in my 1978 edition of Chambers Words. The Key dictionary missed a few of the entries but included words that did not appear in the Chambers list. For instance, it included DJIBOUTI but omitted DJELLABA. I have not had time to give the book a thorough test but it initially it does seem to be inferior to the Chambers' listing.

This is certainly a book that I will keep on my desk and I will certainly use it to help me solve a puzzle or compose a grid.