Bryan Books

This book that covers all holiday seasons and the type of collectibles available in each could be an eye-opener as to what has value in the holiday market. Interesting for almost anyone to read!

In poetic, visual prose MacMahon evokes the Tinkers, the traveling people of Ireland, despised, illiterate and living by their wits.

Martin Claffey has fulfilled his ambition to travel the length of Ireland and now, just days before her time, his wife, Breda, insists on returning to Kerry to birth her first child in the Honey Spike, known to her family as a place with a lucky hospital.

Martin, reluctant and grumbling, agrees and the novel describes their journey home through an IRA raid, the suspicious countryside and the King Puck fair where a goat is crowned the only King of Ireland.

MacMahon homes in close to his characters so the reader feels nose to nose with them, pushed together in the intimacy of caravan and tent, day in, day out. Breda's mind drifts back to the days before she and Martin were wed - the feuds between clans that led to the death of her father, Martin's worrisome attaction to a girl from the rival clan, their own restrained courtship and early married days.

The book explores an intimacy so complete that Martin is like a new powerful limb grafted on to Breda, one that must be manipulated carefully to overcome its dangerous rebellions. It's a quiet, compeling book but the American reader is aware of details missed, subtleties unseen, simply by virtue of the close relationship between author and subject.

A fascinating study of the intelligence breakdown that led to Pearl Harbor. Was it a let-down in preparedness and communications failure, or a sacrificial lamb to grease the wheels for America's entry into World War II? Particularly relevant in today's post 9/11 world where comparisons between Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center disaster are frequent and unfortunate. Is the U.S. government really capable of allowing such disasters to stir up popular response for its foreign policy?

I have followed the many editions of this book. It is a classic. In this latest offering, the author has managed to keep it up to date - not easy in today's fast changing world. Well done. Look forward to the next edition.

As a commercial lender myself, I find myself recommending this book both to prospective borrowers as well as to some branch managers who may be rusty on the Small Business Lending process.

This book gives easy to understand explanations and rationales behind some of the confusing things banks ask their borrowers to do. It gives simple examples and descriptions that help me interpret the process to my customers.

Even after many years of lending money to companies, I find myself reaching for it to remind me of little details I have forgotten. It is well-written and very useful.

I would suggest the author update to include credit scoring issues which are now common in the Small Business Banking arena.

It was a great book for me to understand the virtualization concept in detail. I want to see the second edition

This is the best human sexuality resource currently available. Great for all ages actually, that is, if you want to have straightforward no-nonsense information that is critical to understanding human sexuality.

We bought this book in honor of our daughter for our church library. The story is a simple one of God's love- no matter how many mistakes you make, Mommy and Daddy will always love you. Its nice to find a book for a father to read his daughter. And it also has an application in the story when the daughter is able to forgive her younger brother and love him "anyway and always." Just like God will always love us. The book is a little long so I do not recommend it for the under 4 set. But a great father daughter moment

I ordered a book late on January (Friday) 7, 2005 at night and received it just on time on Monday 01/10/2005. Just when my classes started, I was very glad that this company does what they promise. Thanks.

Although the story of the Japanese super-battleship Yamato has attracted some attention over the years, the history of the Imperial Japanese Navy's entire battleship force in the Second World War has generally received much less attention. In Osprey's New Vanguard No. 146, Imperial Japanese Navy Battleships 1941-45, naval historian Mark Stille provides an excellent summary of the 12 ships that formed the Japanese battle line during the Pacific War. Overall, the book is very well written and packaged, with excellent photos and color plates on each class. Unlike earlier Osprey New Vanguard titles, where all the color plates are in the center - requiring frequent page flipping - the color plates are instead interspersed in each section, which is much more reader-friendly.

The volume begins with a short introduction that covers how battleships figured in pre-war Japanese naval strategy and doctrine and how the Imperial Navy set about developing the ships it needed to implement this strategy. In short, the Japanese took to heart the lessons of the battles of Tsushima (1905) and Jutland (1916) and their war plans envisioned a decisive battleship vs. battleship action that would decide the conflict against their likely opponent - the U.S. Navy. However, due to economic weakness and diplomatic agreements, the IJN could not build as many battleships as the USN and instead opted to build `better' warships, with bigger guns and more armor than their opponent. With bigger guns, the Japanese expected to open fire at 37,000 yards - outranging American battleships by about 4,000 yards and theoretically providing a significant edge in battleship actions. Although this `cult of the battleship' has often been criticized, author Mark Stille points out that these decisions were made at a point when naval air power was still in its infancy and not yet deemed a major threat to battleships. However, as the author also points out, 6 of the 11 Japanese battleships sunk during the Pacific War were done in by aircraft.

The heart of this volume lies in the five short sections (total 30 pages) on each Japanese battleship class: Kongo, Fuso, Ise, Nagato and Yamato. Each sections includes sub-sections on design and construction, armament, service modifications, wartime service, a color plate and a small data plate. Many of the B/W photos used in these sections, from the Yamato Museum, have not been printed in the West before. These sections provide a very nice capsule history of each ship and the author provides a number of insights that explain the performance of Japanese battleships. As he notes, "the quality of Japanese battleship gunnery was mediocre during the war," citing the low number of hits achieved off Guadalcanal and later, Leyte Gulf. One action he does not include occurred on March 1, 1942, when battleships Hiei and Kirishima engaged the destroyer USS Edsall off Java, firing 297 14-inch and 132 6-inch rounds and scoring only a single hit. After that poor performance, the Japanese threw out the pre-war idea of long-range gunnery duels which in practice, wasted ammunition and opted for significantly reduced gunnery ranges. In doing this, the Japanese abandoned much of the rationale for their battleships and in the Solomons used them at point-blank ranges which enabled even U.S. cruisers and destroyers to inflict serious damage on them. The author also notes the poor performance of Japanese anti-aircraft guns and the failure to develop proximity shells, as well as low-quality radar that prevented accurate night gunnery control.

Amazingly, it was only the older Kongo-class that made any significant contribution to the Japanese war effort, particularly in actions in the Solomons, while the best Japanese battleships sat at most of the war well behind the lines. The author notes that super-battleship Yamato was dubbed `Hotel Yamato,' during its inactive time as fleet flagship. Although the growing lethality of airpower rendered Japanese battleships increasingly vulnerable by 1942, he does conclude that, "in the six-month struggle for Guadalcanal, the Imperial Japanese Navy's battleships had the potential to make a significant contribution to a Japanese victory," but instead the IJN only committed two Kongo class battleships, which were lost. He makes an interesting contrast here between the suddenly-cautious IJN leaders who refused to risk their best ships in the Solomons struggle, while the Americans boldly committed their two newest battleships which produced significant results. The author comments that American airpower in the Solomons was too weak at the time to counter a large force of Japanese battleships and a major commitment could have reversed the American build-up. By the time that the IJN decided to commits its battle line in 1944 to the defense of the Philippines it was too late and American airpower had grown exponentially. Thus, this volume provides an excellent case study on how faulty doctrine can lead to poor weapons development choices, which in turn begets poorly-considered operational planning.