Chamberlain Books

This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
The "Decameron" is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic. Other topics such as wit and witticism, practical jokes and worldly initiation also form part of the mosaic. Beyond its entertainment and literary popularity, it remains an important historical document of life in the fourteenth century.

Decameron is structured in a frame narrative, or frame tale. Boccaccio begins with a description of the Black Death and leads into an introduction of a group of seven young women and three young men who flee from plague-ridden Florence to a villa in the (then) countryside of Fiesole for two weeks. To pass the time, each member of the party tells one story for each one of the nights spent at the villa. Although fourteen days pass, two days each week are set aside: one day for chores and one holy day during which no work is done. In this manner, 100 stories are told by the end of the ten days. Each of the ten characters is charged as King or Queen of the company for one of the ten days in turn. This charge extends to choosing the theme of the stories for that day, and all but two days have topics assigned: examples of the power of fortune; examples of the power of human will; love tales that end tragically; love tales that end happily; clever replies that save the speaker; tricks that women play on men; tricks that people play on each other in general; examples of virtue. Only Dioneo, who usually tells the tenth tale each day, has the right to tell a tale on any topic he wishes, due to his wit. Each day also includes a short introduction and conclusion to continue the frame of the tales by describing other daily activities besides story telling. These frame tale interludes frequently include transcriptions of Italian folk songs. The interactions among tales in a day, or across days, as Boccaccio spins variations and reversals of previous material, forms a whole and not just a collection of stories. The basic plots of the stories including mocking the lust and greed of the clergy; tensions in Italian society between the new wealthy commercial class and noble families; the perils and adventures of traveling merchants. The title is a portmanteau, or combination of two Greek words meaning "ten" and "day". Boccacio made similar Greek etymological plays of words in his other works. The subtitle is Prencipe Galeotto, which derives from the opening material in which Boccaccio dedicates the work to ladies of the day who did not have the diversions of men (hunting, fishing, riding, falconry) who were forced to conceal their amorous passions and stay idle and concealed in their rooms. Thus, the book is subtitled Prencipe Galeotto, that is Galehaut, the go-between of Lancelot and Guinevere, a nod to Dante's allusion to Galeotto in "Inferno V", who was blamed for the arousal of lust in the episode of Paolo and Francesca.

Throughout Decameron, the mercantile ethic prevails and predominates. The commercial and urban values of quick wit, sophistication, and intelligence are treasured, while the vices of stupidity and dullness are cured, or punished. While these traits and values will seem obvious to the modern reader, they were an emerging feature in Europe with the rise of urban centers and a monetized economic system beyond the traditional rural feudal and monastery systems, which placed greater value on piety and loyalty. Beyond the unity provided by the frame narrative, Decameron provides a unity in philosophical outlook. Throughout runs the common medieval theme of Lady Fortune, and how quickly one can rise and fall through the external influences of the "Wheel of Fortune". Boccaccio had been educated in the tradition of Dante's Divine Comedy, which used various levels of allegory to show the connections between the literal events of the story and the hidden Christian message. However, Decameron uses Dante's model not to educate the reader, but to satirize this method of learning. The Roman Catholic Church, priests, and religious belief become the satirical source of comedy throughout. This was part of a wider historical trend in the aftermath of the Black Death, which saw widespread discontent with the church. Many details of the Decameron are infused with a medieval sense of numerological and mystical significance. For example, it is widely believed that the seven young women are meant to represent the Four Cardinal Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude) and the Three Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity). It is further supposed that the three men represent the classical Greek tripartite division of the soul (Reason, Spirit, and Lust, see Book IV of Republic). Boccaccio himself notes that the names he gives for these ten characters are in fact pseudonyms chosen as "appropriate to the qualities of each". The Italian names of the seven women, in the same (most likely significant) order as given in the text, are: Pampinea, Fiammetta, Filomena, Emilia, Lauretta, Neifile, and Elissa. The men, in order, are: Panfilo, Filostrato, and Dioneo.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.

Geared primarily towards single urban women but enjoyable to almost everyone who's ever dated, this (alleged) guide to morning-after etiquette provides just the right mixture of "been there done that" and "you did NOT just go there" that sums up the raunch and cringeworthiness of the messier side of the singles life. The freewheeling style of the two authors -- one female, one male -- lurches wildly from comforting to analytical to lecherous to just plain bizarre and back, while matter-of-factly confronting issues that society tends to prefer to gloss over in the name of propriety, while taking digs at college life, alcohol, sexual harrassment, and trashy celebrities.

As insightful, sex-positive, and gratuitously explicit as it is tasteless, misandrist, misogynist, and all-around misanthropic, TWoSSG works for the same reason EMT and other gallows humor works -- it allows people to laugh at bizarre and stressful situations that otherwise would be disturbing or demoralizing. You'll definitely want to keep it away from the kids though -- the vivid pink cover was probably not the best choice of colors, and they won't appreciate it anyway until they're old enough to date themselves.

On the surface, Dean Bennett's "The View from Chamberlain Farm" is an exhaustively researched history of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Below the surface, it is a petition to use the Allagash as a template for the foresight, the courage, and the persistence required to preserve the wilderness, as well as a warning of the continuing threats to the integrity of the founders' intent. Deeper still is the author's worshipful approach to the inner peace and personal fulfillment which comes to the human visitor capable of giving himself over to the spirit of the refuge. The historic component is excellent, starting with the earliest Indian settlements following the retreat of the glacier, ten thousand years ago, and right up to Governor Muskie's dedication of the Allagash in 1970. In the intervening pages we meet Henry Thoreau and his Indian guide, Joe Polis, the founder and operator of the Chamberlain Farm, David Pingree and E.S. Coe, naturalist John Burrows, guide Lucius Hubbard, Governor Percival Baxter, who donated the 200,000 acres comprising Mt. Katahdin, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and the man to whom the Allagash owes the most, Robert Patterson. Against unimaginable odds, Patterson won a life-defining struggle against an adversary comprised of the Federal Government, the powerful landowners and their forest products industry which bankrolled them, and even the State of Maine, which at the time was a "company state." In an era when environmental protection had none of the cachet, none of the funding, and none of the legislative framework, or judicial precedent which it now enjoys, Patterson, Douglas, and Muskie locked arms to leave a legacy of controlled-access wilderness. Bennett leaves the reader with Robert Patterson's firm admonition, "Lesson Number One: Never relax."

This is not a book for the masses, nor is the Allagash itself a destination for the masses. It is written for the reader of the natural history of the lakes, forests, and rivers comprising the Allagash. And with its multiple layers, and with the stories of the saintly men and women whose names will forever be associated with the Allagash, the book leaves us with hope for a kind of spiritual redemption that is found only where vistas still remain as the earliest humans found them. Bennett picks up the mantle of John Burroughs, who wrote in "Wake Robin," in 1871, that his mission was to "depict the immediate, total harmony between man and nature."

Do you have a child who loves the water but often seems reluctant to first go in? Well I do. But any child should enjoy this tale.

Once again, stubborn Jim is here. his time he is reluctant to go into the pool even though he has water wings on and all of the other kids are having so much fun. But when Jim stomps off in stubbornness, he falls into the pool. Once in the water, he remembers how much fun it is and begins swimming and playing with the other children.

The Jim books all center around stubbornness and rhymes. All of the other kids mentioned in this book provide plenty of fun material for the rhymes (now everything doesn't rhyme with Jim).

My daughter loves this book and recognizes Jim from This Is Jane Jim (Jim gets a new baby sister). The artwork is simple, colorful and consistent. If you like Dr. Seuss's rhyming patterns, you will probably enjoy the Jim books.

The perfect sequel to "Killer Angels." Spectacular -- you feel like you are there with Lee, Grant, Chamberlain, etc.

This book kept me up way too late on way too many nights -- you'll have trouble putting it down.

Michael Shaara must be smiling in heaven.

I loved The Killer Angelsand didn't really care for the idea of the son adding to it with sequels and prequels and since then a whole series of historical fiction.
This book has far fewer characters and it is hard not to think that the views they express are tailored by history and 20-20 hindsight. With The Killer Angels, you really felt you were in the moment.
I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but I feel my time would probably have been better spent re-reading the Gettysburg classic.

I had read both "The Killer Angels" and "Gods and Generals" when I started reading this. As such, I was expecting an excellent book and a grand finale to the Civil War. Jeff Shaara doesn't fail to deliver and "To the Last Fell Measure" is an excellent book. It primarily follows Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and Joshua Chamberlain. Naturally, Shaara would go through the months after Gettysburg rather quickly because Grant's Overland Campaign is going to be the primary sourece of action. I'm glad he did and he gives excellent views of the overland campaign. I could actually feel the frustration that Grant felt at lost oppurtunities that he felt were constant and Lee's desperation to turn back the overwhelming Union tide. I love how you can experiance it all and I enjoyed the time span from the fall of Petersburg to the surrender of Lee's army. Both sides are desperate with Lee trying to get supplies and Grant trying to trap Lee's army. I was sad when the book ended, but I compensated for this by getting other books by Jeff Shaara. To sum it all up, if you loved the first two books, then you will have to buy this book to complete the trilogy.

This was a wonderful read. I learned so much about the Civil War conclusion, until I read this book I could appreciate the real situation of General Lee's army, I always thought he surrendered because of a political compromise and to avoid further useless bloodshed but I realized he really had no choice as his army was practically anihilated in the battles of march -april 1865.

I learned also the ruthless pursuit of victory of the Union armies under Grant, that ultimately decided the issue. Grant really pushed through no matter casualties or personal reputation, ultimately puting an end to the war and to further killing.

Lee was portrayed as a real gentleman at arms, almost as a knight of old, personally I would have followed him, his tactics sometimes were flawed or his secondary commanders did not deliver but he was the real spirit of the Conferderate Army. It was very sad to read of the destitution of his army, no food, no uniforms, but great spirit. In the end they gave it all for Lee but were swallowed by the industrial might of the North.

I liked the portrayal of Chamberlain, also a gentleman soldier, very chivalrous at the end.

This book really touched me, it was not a dry account of battles or meaningless action but the story of real men, desires fears, the grandious and the horror of fratricidal war. The vision Lee has of himself charging ahead of his troops at the moment of his death will always saty with me. Wonderful imaginery.

The whole thing could have been avoided if both sides had shown a little more restraint. But, it came to this. Jeff Sharra has written a superb sequal to his Dad's "The Killer Angels", and brought a fitting end to a sad story. I consider it to be a four book series, not three, as "Gone For Soldiers" is the prequel to the whole sorry mess. This wonderful book gives us the horrors of the last 21 months of our Civil War, told mainly thru the eyes of Robert E. Lee, US Grant, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. This is a novel, but Mr. Shaara has done his research; no errors that I could find [aside from a really bad typo that I'll get to]. Douglas Freeman would have been proud of this, and that's very high praise.

Mr. Sharra gives us accurate battle descriptions, as well as a backstage look at the major characters. Lee was frustrated that Jeff Davis couldn't understand that [a] Richmond wasn't all that important, and [b] the jig was pretty well up, anyway. Still, he fought. There is a reason that the losing General is pretty much the most respected man in American History. The greatness of Lee defies description. Dr. Freeman came close, but it took him 2,400 pages. US Grant was also a great general, as well as a noble man [hell of a thing for a Southerner to say], and he had more resourses. And, he was plain determined. The respect he showed General Lee is plenty of evidence of his nobility. And the glimpses of his family depict a decent man. Noble is a good word for Chamberlain, too. And brave. He hated war, but loved his country. The grace and courtesy rendered to General Gorden, alone, make him a gentleman. Ironic the parallel lives Chamberlain and Gordon went on to live...Governors of Maine and Georgia, and leaders of veterans organizations. Sad about Chamberlain's marriage, but Fanny really made him miserable.

The side players get their space...the great Longstreet, the tragic Anderson, and Pickett. Billy Mahone, still fighting to the end. Probably not an accident that the Generals who went on to wealth and power kept their drive. Phil Sheridan gets his due. Yes, he had skill, and courage. But he was a war criminal, pure and simple. He wanted to slaughter our men for target practice after they surrendered, and Grant had to pull rank to stop him; and he still argued with Grant [in front of our Officers] about feeding them.

The surrender scene, alone, is worth the price. Lee kept his dignity. And Grant was great enough to recognize the indescribable "something" that made Lee Lee. You really need to read this book, but only after reading the others. Yes, Dr. Freeman's seven volumes of Confederate History are definitive, but few will have the time, or desire. The only problem I saw was the typo I mentioned...in a list of failed Yankee Generals, "Pope" is rendered "Polk". Please. If this were non-fiction, that would be a fatal error. John Pope was theirs, a war criminal whose saving grace was his stupidity. Leonidas Polk was ours, had nothing to do with Virginia, and was a man whose personal greatness equalled that of General Lee.

Bottom line: highest possible recommendation.

This delightful novel has rekindled my desire to read or re-read the classics. I picked it up for no particular reason other than I had never read Hugo. I didn't expect much: My experience with the classics in high school and college was that they are dull and not worthy of modern reading. But, to my pleasant surprise, I discovered a fascinating book that is rich in wonderful characters and vivid descriptions of 13th century Paris. This is a very good book and it's easy to see why it has stood the test of time.

After a recent trip to Paris with my son on a business trip, I decided it was crazy that I had been to Paris and inside Notre Dame so often yet had not read this classic novel. As someone who loves modern Paris, this book captivated me with its vivid portrayal of life in medieval Paris. What a far cry from Baron Hausman's modern Paris -- a Paris with teeming with squalor, poverty, vagabonds -- and the King's Court. Hugo paints wonderful portraits of the main characters -- the hunchback bellringer of Notre Dame, Quasimodo; the tormented archdeacon, Claude Frollo; the exotically beautiful gypsy, Esmeralda.

All of these characters and the city of Paris come to life in a way that transports one back 650 years. My only criticisms of the book are the couple of chapters that painstakingly outline the street detail of Paris and the layout of Notre Dame. For me, these interrupted the flow of the story, the development of the characters and left me quite bored. As soon as Hugo got back into the core story and plot, I was re-captivated.

I do wish that the original French title was preserved -- Notre Dame de Paris -- rather than the English "Hunchback of Notre Dame". While Quasimodo is certainly a core character, the book is a story about medieval Paris, the daily life of the city, the ordinary citizens of the growing city,the privileged class and themes of love, passion, death and honor. For someone misled by the title, this book is far richer, deeper and more complex than just the story of a deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame in spite of the images that are etched in most people's minds, a great many who haven't read the book.

This is truly one of those novels that deserves its rightful place in the pantheon of literature classics.

Short and ugly ain't no fun. Either is being a witch.


If you aren't interested in fifteenth century Paris, France, and a considerable amount of detail about the odd large building there, don't read this book, you will find it somewhat on the tedious side.

The interesting part of course is that you know something nasty is coming between the accused girl, the authority figure that wants to do her over, the dumb pretty boy, and the smarter would-be saviour Quasimodo.

This novel was written as an argument against the death penalty. The victim was a young, naive innocent girl caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was falsely charged by an overzealous prosecutor, then condemned to death for a crime that didn't even take place!

After being rescued by Quasimoto and hiding from the crowds, the King, thinking the mob wanted her hanged, ordered her death, with no knowledge or even any interest in her situation. Thus, she was murdered.

I never previously paid much attention to the debates charging that the death penalty should be abolished, nor did I understand the reasons. I must say, however, that as hard as it was for me to read this book, (I'm not experienced at reading the classics) it changed my mind and made me see the problems with the death penalty.

If you are the kind of person who likes scary-romantic stories, you're the person who'd probably like this book! I suggest you try it out. There are a few sad parts in this book, although it is a very good story.
- 8yr old homeschool student, California

Lynne Olson's "Troublesome Young Men" is more than, as its subtitle suggests, the story of the Fall of Neville Chamberlain and the "Churchill Conspiracy" of 1940. Olson has written a brilliant popular history of Britain in the 1930s, and what her book lacks in scholarly rigor it more than makes up for with the power of sheer storytelling.

With the rise of the Third Reich, Britain faced one of its greatest challenges. In his semi-autobiography, "Mein Kampf", Adolf Hitler had sketched the course of German ambitions in Europe. Once he rose to power, Hitler started to execute his grand design, expanding the "Reich" over the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

The official response to Nazism was Appeasement - a policy of essentially capitulating to Hitler's every demand in hope of satisfying his endless appetite for conquest and expansion. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain will be forever associated with Appeasement - especially as he came back from the sell out of Czechoslovakia in Munich, and boldly declared the arrival of "Peace for Our Times".

But from the beginning there were dissenters, the "Troublesome Young Men" of the title, a group of some thirty Tory MPs who recognized the madness of Appeasement and tried, in vain, to stop it. Such men as future Prime Minister Harold McMillan, Alfred Duff Cooper, Richard Law (son of 1920s prime minister Andrew Bonar Law) and Freshman MP Ronald Cartland, who was to die before the evacuation of Dunkirk. They attacked the government, and challenged it, risking their political futures along the way. Cartland actually called the Prime Minister a dictator in the House of Commons (p.17).

But throughout the 1930s, the rebels cried in vain. They have faced a powerful, popular and authoritarian Prime Minister in Chamberlain, who imposed an iron discipline on his party, ruled the press, and did not hesitate to use wiretap and threats to keep his party united, and following him. The rebels also had to contend with a largely hostile public opinion, and with another problem, just as acute: the lack of leadership.

In the 1930s, only two men had the potential of leading an anti-appeasement movement to power. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who resigned over the government's appeasement of Mussolini, was one. But Eden was a most reluctant revolutionary. Far from leading a crusade against the government and its policies, he kept his criticism tame, having no desire to alienate Chamberlain's supporters, still the vast majority of Tory MPs, and even hoping to get a Cabinet job again.

The other potential leader was, of course, Winston Churchill. Churchill, Britain's leading orator and most brilliant politician, had the experience and spirits to lead Britain against Hitler. But he was widely percieved as unreliable. Having jumped ship from the Conservative to the Liberal party in the 1900s, and having returned to the fold only with the collapse of the Liberals in the 1920s, he was seen as an opportunist by many. And his stature was diminished by fighting for two inglorious and hopeless causes in the 1930s - his crusade against Indian independence, and his fight in favor of Kind Edward VIII as during the crisis of his marriage to Mrs. Simpson.

Leaderless, the anti-appeasers failed to stop Chamberlain's capitulation in Munich, and Britain failed to response to Hitler's final occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. I had always thought that after Czechoslovakia, appeasement was dead. Indeed, Chamberlain started to take action towards military preparadness, and issued a guarantee of Poland's safety. Yet Appeasement had continued up to the out break of the war. As late as august 1939, days before the German invasion, Chamberlain tried to get the United States to pressure Poland to accept Germany's demands. In effect, he was trying to engineer another Munich, with Washington as the midwife (pp. 200-201).

When the war came, Chamberlain managed to hang onto power. Brilliantly, he co-opted the opposition by appointing Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill's WW1 role. Churchill, a reluctant revolutionary at the best of times, became a loyal and devoted member of Chamberlain's cabinet, and never voted or spoke against him.

The task of removing Chamberlain fell to the rest of the rebels. Chamberlain's incompetent at waging a war he had no heart for made his position weaker and weaker. With the fiasco of Britain's Norway campaign, confidence in Chamberlain was undermined. Standing against Chamberlain in debate, Rebel Leo Amory, quoting Cromwell, made a stirring attack "You have set too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, Go!"

Chamberlain's government survived the no confidence vote that followed, but only just. With pressure for a unity government rising, and with Labour refusal to serve under Chamberlain, the die was cast. After considering Lord Halifax for the role, Churchill emerged as the natural successor.

Later, Churchill described his feeling: "I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial".

Olson gripping book offers us a front seat view of these exciting times. Along with Ian Kershaw's Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry, the Nazis, and the Road to War, "Troublesome Young Men" is the best book I know about Britain during those dark days, going through, in Churchill's phrase, The Gathering Storm.

I've always been interested in understanding how it was that Britain could have remained so passive when faced with the threat Hitler posed to its existence. This well written and thoroughly researched book goes a long way toward helping me understand the answer to that question. Lynne Olson has done a tremendous job of deconstructing the years of appeasement, the debate that led up to Britain going to war and the eventual ascension to power of Winston Churchill. By doing so, Olson allows us to gain great insight into Chamberlain, Churchill, the psychology of appeasement, the mentality of the ruling class of Britain, the game of power politics played by "The Troublesome Young Men" against the appeasers of Hitler, and the personalities and petty grievances that often times got in the way of doing what was best for the country. Throughout the book there are so many wonderful quotes from the players of the time and so many useful bits of historical information, that I ended up underlining nearly half the book. This book has much to say to the historian, political scientist, or even the average guy who thinks seriously about the issue of when a country should go to war.

Olson describes British politics in the years leading up to World War II when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and most of his country were in denial about Hitler's intentions. Olson focuses on a small group of Members of Parliament (MPs) who see the Nazis as a growing threat but who struggle to persuade the government to do anything about it.

I had long known of the Munich Pact and Chamberlain's false hopes for "peace in our time" which served only to encourage further Nazi aggression. But I did not know how dictatorial Chamberlain acted with regards to his own government. As Olson describes it, Chamberlain apparently felt he had sole responsibility and authority for British foreign policy. It was almost as if he didn't trust anyone else for fear they would see Hitler differently.

Olson's story powerfully illustrates the folly of peace-at-any-price mentality which had an unbreakable grip on Chamberlain and most people in England. Having survived the bloodbath of World War I, people were afraid of an even deadlier conflict. They sensed England was woefully unprepared to fight, although the government suppressed most information about this. There were also a number of leaders who liked Germany because it was anti-Semitic and anti-Communist. I was surprised to learn that British newspapers saw their role as not to question the government but to support it. The result was that most citizens did not know the facts about Nazi brutality.

The British government so badly misjudged Hitler and Mussolini that at one point, Chamberlain sent an important, unencrypted message via regular mail to Italy. When asked why he did not use more secure means, Chamberlain responded, "Gentlemen do not read each others mail." The message was of course intercepted by Mussolini.

In the tension-filled days leading up to the Munich Pact, as Chamberlain deliberated fighting Hitler over Czechoslovakia, the Czech ambassador Masaryk told the British government, "If you have sacrificed my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, gentlemen, God help your souls." The appeasement policies pursued by England and France not only delayed war but made it all the more savage when it finally came.

The book is well researched and thorough. I withheld one star because Olson devotes too much space (in my opinion) to the personal lives of various actors in this drama. While I found myself skimming through those pages, other readers may find them fascinating. The story as a whole is interesting and at times fascinating

Those who enjoy this book should read a newly released book that brings back into print some of the writings of G. K. Chesterton. He was, by the 1930s a "troublesome old man" who (like Churchill) got little respect for warning about the menace that Germany posed to European peace. He had done so as far back World War I and continued to do so, despite the fuss he created, during Hitler's rise to power and up until his death in 1936. It's no exaggeration to say that Chesterton was `Churchill before Churchill.'

In September of 1932, four months before Hitler took power, Chesterton wrote a scathing article for the Illustrated London News. Referring what was once called the Great War, he notes that it had become a commonplace to discuss how "the young were embittered when they realised how their elders had brought the world into a horrible catastrophe and a hideous mess." He goes on to issue a stern challenge to those young men: "Since then, the first batch of Young Men have themselves almost become Old Men; but they are still saying it. They are still saying it without seriously thinking about it."

After devoting most of his article to defending the decisions those Old Men made, he turns again to the Young Men of that war now growing old.

"I think this worth mentioning now, for a simple reason. We are already drifting horribly near to a New War, which will probably start on the Polish Border. The Young Men have had eighteen years in which to learn how to avoid it. I wonder whether they do know much more about how to avoid it than the despised and drivelling Old Men of 1914. How many of the Young Men, for instance, have made the smallest attempt to understand Poland? How many would have anything to say to Hitler, to dissuade him from setting all Christendom aflame by a raid on Poland? Or have the Young Men been thinking of nothing since 1914 except the senile depravity of the Old Men of that date?"

All this was but a continuation of a criticism Chesterton directed at all those in positions of leadership, young or old, who lack the courage and will to stand up to evil. Chesterton had been warning about such people for some two decades. In 1918, he would say this about a new breed of pacifist that had appeared just before World War I.

"There still lingers--or rather, lounges--about the world a special type of Conscientious Objector who is luckily in a minority, even in the small minority of Conscientious Objectors. He might more properly be described as an Unconscientious Objector--for he does not so much believe in his own conscience as disbelieve in the common conscience which is the soul of any possible society. His hatred of patriotism is very much plainer than his love for peace. But, just as the instantaneous touch of ice has been mistaken for hot iron, so the unnatural chilliness of his personality is sometimes mistaken for fanaticism. The most horribly unholy and unhappy thing about him is his youth. Most of the more representative Pacifists are old men and indeed, saving their presence, old noodles. But they are kindly old noodles, and their pacifism is mostly a prejudice left by the last sectarian eccentricities of people who could not wholly cease to be Christians even by being Puritans. These people had always disapproved of what they rather vaguely called militarism, regarding it in some mysterious manner as a form of dissipation. As they had been taught not to look on the wine when it was red, so they were taught not to look on the uniform when it was red. They disapproved of bullets rather as they did of billiards, from a hazy association of ideas that connected it with having a high old time. Whether the experience of war is really a giddy round of gaieties, there are probably many to-day who could testify. The point here is that this sort of conscientiousness was a most comical perversion of the Christian tradition; but was still Christian, in the sense that it was a perversion of that and of nothing else. Some sincerity, some simplicity, some sorrow for others, dignified the dying sect."

"But no such lingering grace clings to the remarkable young man I have in my mind. He is cold, he is caddish, he is an intellectual bully, and his intellect is itself vapid and thin. He is marked by an imaginative insufficiency which can be compared to nothing except to finding a Commander, in the thick of battle, looking into a pocket-mirror instead of a field-glass. I remember a debate nearly four years ago in which some followers of Mr. Norman Angell tried to persuade me that, by our moral progress, we had outgrown the very notion of war. When I pointed out that even to abandon war, merely to make money, indicated no moral progress at all, a young Cambridge man put his head on one side and said, "My ethics are not at all ascetic." I can see him still, with his eye cocked up at a corner of the ceiling, and the white light from a high window falling on his funny little head. It happened to be the very day when the Austrian ultimatum went to Serbia." [Chesterton on War and Peace, 294-295, from the Illustrated London News, May 11, 1918. With Austria's harsh ultimatum to Serbia, the long slide toward a Europe-wide war became almost unstoppable. In 1933 Norman Angell would win the Noble Peace prize and tell his many followers that a now Nazified Germany posed no special threat to the peace of Europe.]

As Lynne Olson describes in her book, a few of those Young Men of World War I did take up Chesterton's call to stand up to Hitler. Unfortunately, there were too few of them and they acquired power too late to dissuade Hitler "from setting all Christendom aflame by a raid on Poland" in September 1939, unleashing the war precisely as Chesterton had predicted in 1932.

--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II

This is the story of the men who brought down Chamberlain and installed Churchill as prime minister--an outcome that seemed unlikely at best when World War II began. Lynne Olson's account of these men and their times reads like a finely-crafted and eminently readable novel. Here are the coming out balls, the wire-tapping, the hostile press, the exclusive clubs, the public school mentality--the whole glittering world of upper class Britain with its extravagances, suspicions, and contempt for the masses. The men who brought Chamberlain down belonged to that world just as much as did the men who supported Chamberlain. (Indeed, Chamberlain's supporters and opponents were often close friends and relatives.) And for that reason, voting against the Government felt to these Tory Rebels as a betrayal. And perhaps in some sense they had betrayed that glittering world with their vote.

But if betrayal it was, it was certainly not the first time these men betrayed one another. Boothby carried on an affair with Macmillan's wife for twenty years; none of the rebels would defend the Duchess of Atholl who, as a result, lost her seat to Chamberlain's yes-man over her anti-appeasement stance; Churchill himself (once he was in Chamberlain's Government) would hear no word said against Chamberlain--thus betraying his erstwhile companions, the Tory Rebels.

The Rebels were very fallible humans not angels. And they were disorganized, often uncertain, and lacking a credible strategy. As a result, things had to come to a nearly catastrophic point before they could act. But in the end, it was a Tory Rebel (Leo Amery) who stood up in the House of Commons and told his friend Chamberlain, "In the name of God, go!" Amery did that, knowing full well that if the Revolt did not succeed (prior to that day Chamberlain had a 250-vote majority) his career and perhaps England were doomed.

In the end, of course, the Rebels and their Labour and Liberal colleagues did succeed. Though it was a close thing. This is the story of that one success and their many, completely human failures. But more than that, it is a story of how very fallible individuals can and do make a difference even when faced with a seemingly insurmountable machine. I highly recommend it.

Tyler is a character that will remain with you long after you close the book. His obsession with the queen bee Bethany (who happens to be the daughter of his father's boss), his antagonistic relationship with Bethany's twin brother, his apparent 'no-win" relationship with his own father, and his ongoing struggle with his own identify problems all combine to make for a powerful and poignant drama. Highly recommended but definitely not a book for children!

Earlier this year, I read Twilight simply because a friend raved about it. I was very surprised that I would enjoy a young adult novel so much. I liked it so much, I decided to join the young adult challenge. I saw Twisted reviewed on another blog and decided that it would be the first book in this challenge. I enjoyed it very much.

As a high school teacher, and the mother of a teenage boy, I found the character of Tyler to be very realistic. Anderson has managed to capture the indecision and longing for acceptance that every teenager experiences at this age.

Anderson also manages to infuse the characters her novel with a sense of humor. Some parts of the book deal with sensitive subjects such as suicide, drinking, and sexual assault. Tyler's subtly humorous observations make it easier to get past the ugly topics and concentrate on the lessons he is trying to teach us.

As I started reading "Twisted", I really found it very realistic since all this could easily be pictured in a teenager's world in that given scenario. It was quite a page turner but as soon as I got to the end, I mean it really felt like a loose ending and really too corny for my taste. Overall the book deserves a 5 but the ending really was disspointing so I give it a 4.

Tyler Miller was getting ready to start his Senior year in high school. For years, he had been the quiet, geeky kid that most of the football team had picked on. Then a couple of somethings had happened. Tyler had grown taller and filled out. A summer of working at the landscape company had pumped up muscles he didn't even know he had. Now he was taller and stronger than most of the football players. And of course, the "foul deed". Tyler had spray painted a couple of thousand dollars worth of damage at school and had gotten caught. Now he was "dangerous", a bad boy. The kids at school were definitely looking at him differently. Including, Bethany Millbury, only the most beautiful, popular girl at school. A girl Tyler had a crush on forever. Oh yeah, and the daughter of his father's boss.

Tyler's dad was tough and cold. Working for Millbury trust, he spent so much time at work and traveling that he wasn't around that much. But when he was, tension at home was unusually high. Both Tyler and his sister Hannah had to walk on eggshells around him. And Tyler's mom spent a lot of time with either a migraine, or a gin and tonic in her hand.

When Bethany started eating lunch with Tyler, he couldn't have been more amazed. And neither could Chip, Bethany's brother. He was Tyler's mortal enemy and hated that his sister was interested in Tyler. When the Homecoming Bonfire came around, Bethany invited Tyler to go to a party with her and her friends. Since he didn't have his car any longer, Tyler had to walk to the party. Showing up late, Bethany was around drunk when he got there. She practically threw herself at him.....and Tyler being the good kid he really was, tried to sober her up instead of taking advantage of the situation. But Bethany took it as an insult and got mad. She started making out with one of Chip's friends, and left Tyler alone at the party.

Tyler figured this would probably be the end of his dreams with Bethany. But when pictures of a half-naked Bethany got posted on the Internet, Tyler became suspect number one. Now his new found popularity is gone. And he has to prove to everyone, including his dad, that he isn't the kind of person that would do something like this.

Laurie Halse Anderson has this uncanny ability to think like a teenager. And not only that, she can WRITE like a teenager. Twisted is told from Tyler's point of view, and it's hard to believe it wasn't actually written by a teenage boy. Anderson tackles some really deep issues including sex, depression, and teenage suicide. And she does so with such realism and honesty that it's scary. I haven't been in high school for a long time, but I remember a lot of those raw feelings. Anderson just puts them all down on a page. And it's gut-wrenching to read.

It makes me a little frightened to read books like this. My son will be in 7th grade this year, and I just want to hold him and protect him from all the bad things that High School can bring. I know that I can't. I can give him love, encouragement and the tools to try to do the right thing. Then I have to let him go and trust that he will be ok. It scares the hell out of me, it really does.

Even if you don't have kids in school, this book will take you back to the torturous days of high school. It's honest, insightful, and at times, very bleak. But, in the end, there is hope. And that's all that anyone can ask for. This book is definitely not for children (and it plainly states that on the opening page of the book). But for older kids and teens, it's a wonderful look at the world of high school, and the pitfalls and temptations that could possibly face them. Highly recommended.

Tyler Miller has always been among the oppressed, from the time he was in middle through all his high school years. Until one day when he decides to make a statement by spray painting the school; suddenly, through arrest and a summer spent doing hard labor for community service, Tyler's transformed into one of the dangerous crowd. When he finally catches the eye of Bethany Milsbury, he thinks things are at last going to go well for him. Unfortunately, his home life and doing the decent thing bring his world down around him, and choices must be made.

Gut-wrenching at times, Twisted follows Tyler as he comes to grips with who he is as a person and what he's willing to sacrifice. Anderson is a gifted storyteller and she gives Tyler a strong voice as he faces more arrest and becoming an outcast in his school community. Twisted is dark, and many teens will recognize the typical high school cliques. My biggest gripe is the lack of closure; Anderson gives us a realistic tale and leaves us hanging as to how it will all turn out. Good writing, though, and definitely an interesting plot that will engage. I'm not sure that enjoyed is the correct word, but I did find myself unable to put it down. Recommended.

This was my first book of Diane Chamberlain's and I can't wait to read the rest. I'm so happy I've found my new Jodi Picoult!! She reminds me so much of her but is 10X better!! I read this book in 1 day and couldn't put it down. My poor kids watched more tv than they ever have and I ignored my husband all night :)

Thanks for a great book Diane and I am excited to read more!

This book was interesting and quick to read but it was not very suspenseful. From the very first chapter of the book, you know how the story will turn out. I think it was okay, but definitely not one of the best books I've ever read. And it would have been much better without the first chapter.

I just happened to pick this book up at Target and am SO happy I did! It was a quick read, but with substance. I couldn't put it down and stayed up way too late many nights reading it. I can't wait to read more books by this author...I LOVED it!!

This was an incredible read!!! I could not put this book down - it engrossed me from the first page and when I was done I felt sad because such a great read was over. Ms. Chamberlain made me feel sympathetic to every single character and I felt like I could really put myself into all of their shoes, so to speak. The writing was so fluent that I was able to fully absorb myself into every scene. I am recommending this book to every one of my friends who is a "reader."

This is my second book by Diane Chamberlain and I have already bought my third. She is an amazing writer! If you like Jodi Picoult, you will love Chamberlain. The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes is a wonderful story about mothers and daughters, family, secrets and trust. You will not be sorry if you read this book! The Bay at Midnight is equally as good!

"So few my roads
So many the mistakes"
These lines from the poet Esenin are tattooed on the chest of a prisoner and card-sharp who appears in one of the opening stories of Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales. This collection of stories ranges from 3-page long vignettes to 25-page short stories. But even a few pages are enough to convey the crushing inhumanity and brutal conditions endured by the author and millions of prisoners throughout the Gulag. Part auto-biographical and part semi-fictional, the stories resonate with dark Russian humor, horror, and endurance. Particularly memorable are the stories 'Vaska Denisov, Kidnapper of Pigs,' 'Shock Therapy', and 'Major Pugachov's Last Battle'.

Shalamov was as deserving as Solzhenitsyn for the Nobel Prize. Readers who liked this work are encouraged to read 'With God in Russia' by Walter J. Ciszek and 'Magadan' by Michel Solomon.

Stories are somewhat simple and uneventful, I found Fiets Vase to be a much more interesting book with stories that made a greater impact on me.

This is one of the greatest books ever.I personally don't have a lot of passion for short stories, but each of Shalamov's short stories is a book in itself.I have known about this book for over a year, but I just started reading it two days ago,and I have been enjoying it very much, although I should admit that the stories about the experience Shalamov and millions of people went through during the rule of Stalin is heartbreaking and makes me very angry.No matter how much suffering they undergo and how many hurdles thrown before them,great people like Shalamov, always contribute to the world of writing and to the history.

Shalamov does not need to moralize. His stories of the gulag -- the shortest are the best -- are chilling vignettes of a thoroughly nihilistic world. They are understated reminders not only of the prevalence of inhumanity but also of pure randomness. One day, someone was the head of a prison; the next day, he was shot. This book takes its rightful place in the literature of evil.

In his book THE GREAT TERROR, Robert Conquest estimated that three million Soviet political and other prisoners lost their lives in the icy gulags northeast of Yakutsk known only as the Kolyma (with the accent on the last syllable, as in koh-lee-MAH). Since then, the estimate has gone down somewhat to a mere half million. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in his Gulag Archipelago referred to it as "the pole of cold and cruelty."

No one has written as much or as impressively about the Kolyma as Varlam Shalamov, whose KOLYMA TALES is a collection of short stories distilled from his seventeen years as an Article 58 political prisoner, in a place where the average prisoner typically lasts only three months before succumbing to the cold, the brutality, and starvation. According to Shalamov in his story "Major Pugachov's Rebellion":

"The arrests of the thirties were arrests of random victims on the false and terrifying theory of a heightened class struggle accompanying the strengthening of socialism. The professors, union officials, soldiers, and workers who filled the prisons to overflowing at that period had nothing to defend themselves with except, perhaps, personal honesty and naïveté--precisely those qualities that lightened rather than hindered the punitive work of `justice' of the day. The absence of any unifying idea undermined the moral resistance of the prisoners to an unusual degree. They were neither enemies of the government nor state criminals, and they died, not even understanding why they had to die."

The prisoners were carried by ship to the port of Magadan, which was free of ice only half the year. Once, when the prisoners on board ship mutinied, all the ship's crew had to do was hose down the holds where the prisoners were kept. The water froze within minutes, killing hundreds. Once the ships arrived, the prisoners taken to a transit camp and eventually reassigned to one of the "permanent" camps in the area. The most brutal duty was working in the gold mines in a region that is the coldest on earth. (Winter temperatures can be under -30° F for weeks at a time, and frequently under -60º F, and sometimes under -90º F.) It is the gold miners who tend not to last. The only reason Shalamov was able to last seventeen years was that he spent much of the time working in a hospital, where conditions were by far the easiest.

Once in the camps, political prisoners were subject to two terrifying hierarchies: the camp commandants and their security personnel and, by far the worse, prisoners from the criminal classes, those arrested for murder and robbery. If one runs afoul of one of the guards, one can be shot; but if one runs afoul of the felons, whether an officer, a guard, or a prisoner, one can be just as surely killed. At all times, the level of theft is epidemic: Clothing, food scraps, books--anything that can be conceived of as holding any value--is stolen without any chance for redress. Prisoners who get their hands on some extra food consume it immediately for fear of losing it to theft. The only people in the camps who have the power to ease the lives of the prisoners are the professional medical staff. Even in the worst days of the Stalin terror, doctors were never subject to political or security pressure, only from judgment by other, higher medical professionals.

Virtually all the prisoners suffered from scurvy. It was thought that the local dwarf-cedar needles contained Vitamin C, the lack of which is the cause of the disease. In "An Epitaph," Shalamov describes one character named Roman Romanovich, who was assigned to pick the needles:

"Only real `goners' were used for needle-picking. These starving semi-invalids were the by-products of the gold-mines, which transformed healthy people into invalids in three weeks by hunger, lack of sleep, long hours of heavy work, beatings. New people were `transferred' to the work gang, and Moloch chewed on...."

A few sentences further on, we learn that "the needles were not only useless as a source of Vitamin C but were even declared much later, in 1952, to be harmful to the kidneys."

Small details emerge from this great collection. For example, prisoners avoided the bottom bunks in the prison dormitories because they were icy cold. Heat rises, so that the most desirable bunks were closest to the ceiling. Naturally, these were all occupied by the criminal classes. Prisoners hated having to take baths, not because they loved their body lice, but because they had to surrender all their clothing to be deloused. What they got back was not necessarily their own rags; and often they had to wait naked and shivering while the door opened and closed to admit new prisoners.

One particular detail stands out in the story "Dry Rations":

"We'd all learned weakness and had forgotten how to be surprised. We had no pride, vanity, or ambition, and jealousy and passion seemed as alien to us as Mars, and as trivial in addition. It was much more important to learn how to button your pants in the frost. Grown men cried if they weren't able to do that. We understood that death was no worse than life, and we feared neither. We were overwhelmed by indifference. We knew that it was in our power to end this life the very next day and now and again we made that decision, but each time life's trivia would interfere with our plans. Today they would promise an extra kilo of bread for good work, and it would be simply foolish to commit suicide on such a day."

I can think of no comparable time in history where such a large number of innocent people suffered so grievously. Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn have performed a great service by documenting these horrors. But where Solzhenitsyn preached and moralized, Shalamov took it all as a starting point for great literature. What Shalamov takes for granted will make your hairs stand on end and give you nightmares of an icy hell. I will never forget his Kolyma Tales as long as I live.

About the title for my review, it comes from the prisoners themselves, whose watchword this was.