Dunne Books

Peter Earl does it again. There have been a few titles on Henry Morgan's exploits on the Spanish Main lately, but this one really stands out from the pack. Earl's excellent bibliography demonstrates his superior scholarship and the maps are an excellent addition, although I do wish there were more. Still, for understanding the privateer mind in the political climate of the mid to late 17th century, I haven't found a better book. It's a great, fun read, and includes details that the military history buff will enjoy and likely not find elsewhere.

This book refers to the capture of Panama City by Henry Morgan and his army of privateers in 1671. Captain Morgan and his band served the British, while Panama was owned by the Spanish. Morgan's capture of the city was an extension of the military rivalry between England and Spain. This book focuses on how this rivalry was manifested in the Caribbean Sea and Spanish Main. In particular, it follows the paths of several men on both sides of the conflict, and how their fates intertwined during Morgan's capture of Panama, and his subesequent return to Jamaica. The book's story unfolds in chronological fashion, and the author takes pains to point out events that could be open to interpretation. The book is written like a historical commentary, with the author telling the story, and interjecting occasionally to offer opinions. For such a subject, the book only provides one big map of the entire Spanish Main. This is unfortunate, and the author should have provided a detailed map for each chapter to help the reader locate the events of each chapter. An overall timeline would have been nice too, along with photos or drawings of some of the places such as Port Royal, Panama City, etc... All told, an OK book, and not the best one to read to understand this episode of history.

A quarter into this book I was expecting a to read a detailed account of how each pirate kept a parrot named Polly and guarded a deep hatred of Peter Pan. This book is about historical as the free brochures in a cheap hotel lobby. The brutal rape, torture and murder of innocent civilians at the hands of criminals at sea is completely whitewashed in the way only a child could.

I finished the The Sack of Panama while clinging to hope that this author would at some point serve history and his reader by presenting the other side of the rosey picture. The actual sack of Panama is one of the most brutal sets of events in history. I read in vain. Shame to the author, go to college (again).

My goodness,does history repeat itself - even at our level and during our lifetimes? Long before Pirates of the Caribbean there was Errol Flynn and robust movies about the Caribbean. They were enough to fire a child's imagination; they certainly did mine.
This book does as well for it clearly and quite accurately depicts one of the Caribbean's most dastardly yet human pirates. Or should we call them solidiers of fortune serving their Virgin Queen in faraway London?
This book covers much but not all of Morgan's life and captures the adventurous life he led. The style is light, it's an easy read and serves to whet our appetites to read more about not only Morgan but that amazing buccaneeer era he helped create.

One of the best things about the ongoing popularity of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies is that they have urged other studios and publishers to release treasures from their vaults in order to capitalize on the boom. Classic movies like "Sea Hawk" and "Captain Blood" finally made it to DVD... and Earle's brilliant book, "The Sack of Panama," has finally been re-released.

The book, originally published by a relatively small British press in 1981, is a nod to good ol' fashioned narrative history--unlike the "social" histories of the last half-century, it tells a single story with well-defined characters with a "plot." This isn't even a broader history of piracy, just a single historical moment.

And what a moment! Morgan's attack on Panama City (with its various antecedents) is the stuff of epics: unendurable hardship, audacity, the clash of nations, brilliant strategies made on the fly, heroism and cowardice... its all in there, larger than life. Earle does a fantastic job of chronicling these events, but wraps them around the emotions, scents and tactile sensations of the time that the reader really feels a part of this incredible adventure. I particularly remember the horrifying moment when Morgan's men, having survived an unbelievably harrowing overland march across the Panamanian isthmus where they faced starvation and disease, set upon cattle grazing outside Panama City, desperately eating the meat raw. Moments later, they set their murderous, blood-splattered eyes on on the city for the first time, and I though with a chill, "Oh, ----! This is gonna be ugly!"

But even better, Earle uses this single moment to illuminate the broader history of the era. With just a few quick pen strokes, the reader gets a genuine feel of Spain's colonial system in the Americas--its strengths and fundamental weaknesses. We understand the broad political world of the Caribbean, and how it was intimately tied to Europe. The rationale (and idiocy) of the various colonial economies are made clear. This ability to tell a global story with a single representative event is what pushes this book from being good to being great.

Thanks for making this book available again!

Despite the hip, appealing jacket and auspicious credentials of the author, this book disappoints. It feels like an academic toss-off, designed for the layperson with a fleeting interest, who will leaf through it like a magazine. To swim through the author's disjointed and often autobiographical slough to arrive at the occasional chunks of interesting stuff is simply not worthwhile. On page 9, the author describes his attitude toward his doctoral thesis (...I stayed up, slept late, frequented cafes in the long afternoons, wrote and unpublished novel and an unperformable play, watched far too many old movies, and diligently avoided my supervisor...) Replace 'supervisor' with 'lit agent', and we may have discovered Newton's approach to book writing as well.

It's a wonder that a writer could take such a fascinating subject matter and make it so annoying.

While the subject is as interesting as I could possibly imagine, the book itself really disappointed me. Lots of meandering and boring suppositions with occasional facts and interesting tidbits. I was looking for a book that tried to explain wild children, or at the very least would explain and examine how and why they are so different.

This read like someone who casually researched several cases and then wrote up an excellent magazine article.

Then they added 300 pages of filler off the top of their head, and the book was published.

This book is well researched and well written. As engrossing as it is disturbing, this is a must read for anyone interested in the history of lost or abandoned children. A study of personality developement as well as a case by case study of some of the most interesting and well documented cases of lost children. A must read for those interested in discovering what effect isolation or early contact with others really has.

Newton writes well. I found his book worthy of reading, but if you are expecting a deep study in the psychology of essential human nature absent the influence of culture you will be disappointed. The book focuses primarily on the impressions of those who have encountered feral human beings within a civilized setting. It is full of folk-psychological analyses of the phenomenon but nearly devoid of any in-depth scientific analysis. Perhaps what I was expecting is not available due to the ethical restrictions on studies of human beings. Nevertheless, the book seems more an exercise of philology than psychology or philosophy.

This is a fantastic book, bringing together six very different case studies of wild children. It is a book about innocence and its vulnerability. Exquisitely written, Newton brings together each tale with a great deal of feeling and consideration and is a book that will stay with you long after you have read it.

Griffin's account of his travels through the Caucusus Mountains succeeds on two levels: first, as an historical document on the life and times of the holy warrior, Shamil, who fought for more than 30 years against the Russian and Cossacks during the mid 19th century; second, as a fascinating and, at times, funny account of his travels in 1999 through a very dangerous region of our world: Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the Chechen border. Griffin hits home the point of how difficult it is to truly "win" in this region, an area that is accustomed to fighting across the generations. As America is learning in Afghanistan, the fighting never truly stops. So, too, with the Caucusus. Fighting is, seemingly, within the DNA of many residents within this region. Griffin paints a fascinating portrait of Shamil who, throughout his life, miraculously escaped numerous near-captures by the Russians. The end of the book focuses on the "lion in winter," so to speak, as Shamil lives out his final years as a "guest" of the tsar. The historical chapters within this book are separated by Griffin's current-day travels with an interesting gang of characters, the most unusual -- and seemingly dangerous -- one being his translator Ilya. Ilya is not only dangerous with his drunken exploits, but with his poor translations, as well.

OK, so Nicholas Griffin's got a knack for writing. You can't fault him on his skills: he vividly traces the life of the famous (to some) Caucasus mountain warrior leader, Shamil, who held off the Russians for over three decades in the nineteenth century. He weaves in the lives of various Russians and others (including a French woman captive) who knew him or had to deal with him, shows how the Russians consistently misjudged their ability to capture or kill him and bring the resistance of the Muslim mountaineers of the north Caucasus to a halt. In their misguided tactics, the Russians wasted the lives of thousands of their own men, and killed huge numbers of Chechen, Avar, and Lezgin villagers (not to mention a host of other, smaller peoples) to almost no avail. Shamil was able to unite the usually-fractured tribes of the region under the banner of Islam, though he was not above murdering dissenters. Griffin has brought the amazing, violent story of the long anti-Russian resistance to Western readers again, albeit with a fair measure of mythology and little background information for those "few readers" who aren't up on Caucasian ethnography.

But that's not all. He set off with four companions on a very dazed, unorganized trip around the Caucasus region with minimal preparation and planning. His skillful writing contrasts almost hilariously with the group's utter inability to get along or even to know what to do next. The "interpreter" can hardly speak English and is plastered out of his mind most of the time. Nobody seems to know anything about the customs or languages of the people they meet (and need to survive). They drink vodka, bicker, and fight, and even take up using boxing gloves against each other to the great amusement of some lower-depths locals. Becoming drunken clowns hardly is the way to learn about history or culture, no matter how "untouristy" it may seem to the participants. And, though Shamil came from Dagestan, and many of his supporters came from Chechnya, and many famous battles occurred in those two places, the group failed to get across the border into Russia at all. They did spend a fair bit of time in Armenia, though, where nobody had even heard of Shamil. They didn't seem to be able to figure out why not. Nice going, boys.

So, it's a grab bag. But, I do admit, a well-written grab bag which I enjoyed a lot. The parallels between Shamil the Imam's war against Russia and the two Chechen wars since 1994, the last of which is still sputtering on, are clear. Quite a few errors that I (a non-expert) could pick up. I wonder what the experts would say. On page 129, he's got Shamil at the wrong age. He says Armenian is the oldest alphabet. It's not---google Bishop Mashtots and see. He writes "Arzrum" instead of the international "Erzurum". On page 188, he talks of the railways carrying the Chechen exiles south from Grozny in 1944---uh, that would be east or north. On page 224---he mentions Basayev's attack on Chechnya in 1994. It was Dagestan, no? These may be pedantic quibbles, but they also may indicate that the editing, like the trip itself, was a bit chaotic and ill-considered. But if you get this book, you will enjoy it anyhow.

There is no doubt whatever that this book is exceptionally written, bordering in parts on the poetic. Alas, Griffin's romanticization of the Murid wars which consumed the better part of 50 years, from the 1820s through the 1860s, leaves a great deal to be desired, mostly because Griffin did absolutely no work to place these wars into the historical context of the global Islamic jihad, which began with Mohammed's reign of terror in the Jewish and other non-Muslim communities of seventh century Arabia, and continued throughout Islamic history, wherever non-Muslim communities abutted Islamic ones.

Griffin describes, for example, the particularly horrific capture of some princely wives and children from an idyllic estate in the southern Caucasus and their entrapment for many months with the wives of the leading jihadi of the era, including at least one Armenian woman, herself a victim of the historical Islamic tradition of entrapment and enslavement of non-Muslim women and children forced to submit to Islamic life and law.

To Griffin, however, this episode, along with every other bloody exploit of the Islamic warriors was somehow justifiable, despite the fact that the so called victims began the wars when Islamic chieftains and their brigands encroached upon Russian communities along their borders to rape, pillage, thieve and otherwise harras their neighbors on the northern frontier.

Griffin sets these wars into a text that spans his journey of several months through the region in the 1990s, before the Russian counter-terror operations in Grozny again reached a crescendo late in the decade. It is passingly interesting to learn of the various drunkards with whom he traversed the region, but wholly unimportant except as a window onto a way of life that continues in the tradition of Islamic jihad.

Unfortunately, Griffin draws upon the equally false and romanticized musings of Leo Tolstoy, whose last novel eulogized a central figure in the Murid wars, Haji Murid, who despite his Islamisist attitudes and barbarities, occasionally demonstrated kindness, as when he won back Tolstoy's ruinous gambling losses and returned the promissory notes to the famed novelist the next morning.

Certainly there have been many ugly eras in Russian history, but it is historical outrage to suggest that 19th century Russian treatment of Muslims (after all, resulting from ceaseless Muslim assaults on Russian communities near the Caucasus) in any way justified Muslim slaughters of Russians during those horrible decades.

Worse, the account ignores massive historical evidence of 1,400 years of Islamic human rights abuses (of which the Murid wars were just a tiny microcosm). Griffin presents 19th century terrorists as somehow heroic and awesome, a pattern repeated in modern reporting on the continuing jihad.

I am sorry, but I miss the romance in stealing other people's women and children, murdering the stragglers, tying naked nursemaids to trees and reigning death on legions of entrapped Russian soldiers whose sole purpose was in the first place to protect Russian communities from Islamic terror.

Now, history repeats.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

The author falls into the usual mistake of Caucasus writers: he believes in the mythology of the noble mountain warrior. His search for the fantoms of Imam Shamil is pretty shallow and amateur. The reader would probably want to go for real fiction instead and buy Leslie Blanch's Sabres of Paradise. For those who want something serious (more than the boring ride of a young hype journalist in a decrepit Zhigouli across the Caucasus) go for Yo'av Karny's Highlanders.

This is a relatively quick read about a film crews travels in the Caucasus Mountains. There are two stories here. The first is the story of the travels in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Georgia, and Chechnya. Then there is the story of Iman Shamil, a leader of the Avars and Chechens who led the revolt against the encroaching Russian Empire. Shamil led the revolt that took the Russians thirty years to suppress. This revolt was termed the Murid Wars. It cost the Russians dearly. In the end the revolt was quelled when the Russians cut down the trees that constituted the hiding places of the rebels. Both sides were vicious in dealing with the civilian population. This harks to the present conflict which is just as destructive and vicious as the one of old, if not worst. This book is interweaved with these two stories. The one distraction with this book is the exploits of Ilya, an Uzbek Jew who causes trouble with the other film crew members.
This sheds light on a little known conflict. The book is an easy read, but I wish the author had concentrated on one story, rather than two.

I've read about 5 of Muller's books featuring Sharon McCone. This wasn't one of my favorites.

"The Cheshire Cat's Eye" is the third book in the Sharon McCone series by Marcia Muller. McCone finds her friend Jake Kaufmann dead in a San Francisco Victorian house that he is restoring by painting it with gaudy colors. The architectural communty is very opposed to these psychedelic houses. There are several suspects, and McCone is one of them. She must investigate, not only to clear her name, but find Jake's killer. Sharon McCone is by far my favorite female PI in detective fiction. Muller's characters are well-drawn, and her books are a pleasure to read. This novel is not as complex as some of her later works, but this is an excellent place to start. If you haven't yet met Sharon McCone, you will be in for a big treat.

Ah, the San Francisco of the postcard. Alamo Square with Victorian Row houses with downtown in the background. Muller's third Sharon McCone novel has a terrific sense of place and taught me many new things about the Victorian scene in San Francisco.

Still, the pacing seems a bit bogged down. The side characters, often a highlight in Muller's books, aren't very interesting or sympathetic. Who cares if one of them is killed -- just don't wreck the Tiffany Lamp.

A good read if you love the atmosphere of "romantic San Francisco" but otherwise so-so.

Private eye, Sharon McCone, receives a frantic phone call from a friend, Jake Kaufmann, who paints houses in the Painted Lady district of San Francisco. When she reaches the Victorian house where Jake asks her to meet him, she finds him dead. During her investigation she discovers that there are many special interest groups in the area who might have a motive for murder. There are purists who want the homes restored to their original look and there are those who want to fix them up to sell them by painting them the gaudy colors which became popular in the 60's. Sharon (and the reader) find out about the different kinds of Victorian houses which became popular in San Francisco and also some of the furnishings which go well in the houses. Against this background McCone finally figures out who in the community committed Jake's murders and some others. This is a good mystery from the reliable Marcia Muller.

Private Investigator, Sharon McCone receives a message from an old friend, Jake Kaufmann, asking her to meet him in one of the old Victorian terrace houses in the suburbs of San Francisco, which he is restoring and painting in very bright colours. The locals highbrows who disapprove of anything which is not an original colour, call this row of houses, the Painted Ladies. She finds his murdered body lying in a pool of bright red paint, at the foot of a tall ladder and calls in her boyfriend, Lieutenant Greg Marcus, the head of Homicide. This turns out to be the first of three murders which occur in these houses, and all seem to be connected,pointing directly to both the various architectural bodies which object to the bright colours and to the local poor population who object to their neighbourhood being gentrified, thus depriving them of cheap housing which these houses were when in their dilapidated state. It's a quick little read and quite interesting with its descriptions of the furnishings and architectural features of Victorian terraces in America.

I wanted to enjoy this book, I really did. Unfortunately, I have been a fan and collector of the late novelist Elisabeth Ogilvie for many decades. This book bears a very strong resemblance Ogilvie's "The Silent Ones" which took place on the Isle of Skye. It was published in 1980, 21 years before The Gripping Beast. The main premise, many of the events, and even some of the character names are identical or very similar to The Silent Ones. In Ogilvie's book, heroine Alison Barbour hopes to trace her red-haired great-grandmother on this remote Scottish island, but she is drawn into an even greater mystery, a murder. In The Gripping Beast, heroine Isabel Garth hopes to discover more about her late father's heritage on this remote Scottish island but is drawn into solving a murder.

The dead person in Ogilvie's novel was found among standing stones, and had unseeing, open eyes that reflected the sky. In The Gripping Beast, we're told that the dead woman was found in a ruin near standing stones, and, "Her open eyes stared at nothing [...] their faded color seeming no more than a clouded reflection of the blue of the sky."

Many other scenes, from the heroine's arrival on the island, to social events there, are pretty faithful reproductions. This angers me. Just because The Silent Ones is out of print and over 20 years old, doesn't mean a new writer can plunder it for plot and details. It appears that Wadley has not written any more mysteries, even though the cover on my copy says, "Introducing Isabel Garth". Maybe this is why.

Although not a serious mystery reader I found this story to be very compelling from the first page and I eagerly look forward to a trip to the Orkneys next year. From the moment Isabel reaches Orkney she is set for a roller coaster ride of emotions and events not of her own choosing but ones she will endure to get to the bottom of the troubles. Not being able to trust anyone,like Isabel, the reader will be on the edge of their seats as she has one frightening encounter after another. The mythological elements are especially well done adding much to the story. Unlike other mysteries the tale is told with depth but there are no red herrings here to fool the reader, especially us inexperienced ones. The story moves along with well paced events, the writing is crisp with no filler to spoil the elements of surprise and the reader will care about what happens to Isabel. The characters especially Isabel and Ross are going to capture the readers attention but there are a few more such as Graham and Andrew who could have been developed more. Here is hoping that the author will return the reader to the Orkneys with more chilling tales involving this wonderful cast of characters in the very near future. A remarkable first book not to be missed by readers who love tales set in Scotland rich with mythical details.

I feel like getting an airline ticket and travel to the enchanting Scottish Islands - The Orkney's. The author, Margot Wadley, demonstrated a unique feel for the characters and the location. The time frame is tremendous. There is the feel of a very ancient time intertwined with current quandries in the world today. The ancient vikings fit in very well and give us a feel of the ancient people of the Orkney's. As two examples of the modern problems - the lead character, named Isabel, is an unmarried expectant mother who wonders what the best path would be for her life. Secondly, a nuclear waste site is being proposed in this beautiful pristine area. The writer gives us many things to think about as well as a "darn good read." I'm looking forward to many more books by this author. It was interesting to note that the author also illustrated the book jacket.

How this book won any awards is a mystery to me... No attempt has been made to use the Islanders' distinctive accents and surnames. The descriptions within the book do not reflect Orkney's unique landscape and leave the reader with a view of the island as filled with paper thin characters and carboard cut-out landscapes. Additionally, the so-called 'heritage' which is mentioned throughout the book seems to be a diluted version of Scotland's with a few pieces of Norse mythology thrown in for good measure. In short, if you are interested in the islands do not read this book - come visit Orkney instead.

What a fun read! Wadley takes us on a trip to faraway Orkney for a tradtional mystery. I really enjoy a cozy little mystery with a British flavor and this is one. She describes a place completely foreign to me without beating me over the head with flowery prose - yet well enough that I can see it and feel it in my mind's eye. Wadley also sprinkles the dialogue with localisms to keep us in the mood but not to the point it is tough to read. There's a bit of old fashioned gothic romance and a real Golden Age of mystery feeling. I liked the heroine and hope that the author writes about her again.

I am curious about honey, because I feel I should like it more than I do, so I picked up this book partly based on reviews and the back cover.
The book is pleasantly written, informative, full of unexpected bits. There are recipes, sections on how the hive has been used as a political metaphor throughout the ages (in the Middle Ages, the queen was a king, of course), and interesting coverage of the scientists who advanced knowledge of the hive.
So, to sum up: this is a useful book, pleasantly written, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about bees. I have a little caveat to add, though. It miffed me how, nowadays, reviewers tend to be so extravagant in their praise. It is as if they feel they need to be heard above the din by shouting louder than anybody else. Could they please stop calling everything brilliant that is just good? After all, what is bad with good?
PS. This little rant should not, I hope, dissuade anyone from reading this book.

This book is not just about bees and the history of beekeeping. This also deals with how bees have been linked to sex, death, food and drink. The book deals with mead, the Church and bees, the Romans and bees, the Renaissance and bees. How bees, and their hives, shaped our ideas of nature, science, government and God. They became the symbols of power, of Kings and Popes, of socialism and order.
There are also lists of recipes for food made from honey and potions made with honey. This is a must for any fan of bees or any beekeeper.
Bee Wilson is a big fan of bees and the honey they produce, going so far as to visit an apiary and, yes, she has been stung. You can feel her wonder and joy at writing her first book on the subject. And it is a joy to read.
But one warning. Mormons are not shown in a good light as the other reviews show.

I initially enjoyed the book very much, but then I was very taken aback by the blatant religious bigotry in the book toward Mormons. If Ms. Wilson can express such slanted and misinformed views about Mormons in a supposed scholarly work it certainly calls the rest of her scholarship into question. I can't help but doubt the accuracy of the rest of the book -- why would she be accurate in other ways and be so totally inaccurate about Mormons, their origins and what they believe? Her claim that she doesn't "mean to be offensive" rings hollow -- she absolutely does intend to offend, and she absolutely does. Moreover, her sidebars about Mormons and their supposed beliefs have nothing whatever to do with bees and the fact that Utah is the beehive state. It was just Mormon-bashing plain and simple.

My husband (who is not a Mormon, by the way) read that passage and said that he no longer had any interest in reading the book because he found her bigotry so off putting. I would never have purchased the book had I realized it contained that, and I am surprised the publisher allowed her uninformed diatribe to pass through. It is a shame because the premise of the book is interesting. I can't know whether Ms. Wilson is telling the truth in the rest of the book or just sort of making stuff up as she goes along, however, so reading the rest of it at this point seems pointless.

I picked this book up completely randomly but have loved every moment of it. I am a huge fan of honey, cooking and the convoluted histories of the foods we love. Always a big fan of honey (and bees!) it wasn't until I read this book that I realize how pervasive and longlasting our human fascination (obsession?) with bees has been. It's an easy read - very detailed with lots of great honey and bee trivia throughout the ages. The writer is a Brit and mentions the history of bees and honey in the U.S. only in passing, so people looking for something specific to North America might have to go elsewhere. This is definitely more of a Western European view.

THE HIVE: THE STORY OF THE HONEYBEE AND US joins others which have appeared earlier this year covering the bee - but goes further than most, drawing connections between the hive mentality of the bee and human affairs. Bees appear as symbols of many things and their honey product is widely used in cooking: their story blends myth with science and mankind has long been enamored of the bee. THE HIVE traces mankind's different beliefs about the bee over the decades, gathering history from around the world from science, religion, politics and beyond. Lovely black and white drawings throughout enhance a fun story.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is neither historically accurate nor true to the character of the Sheridan. Jack Absolute has been hijacked and turned into the author's Marty Stu! This is nothing more than published badfic, made possible by the character's public domain status.

This is a historical fiction set during the American Revolution, centering around a British officer ("Officer, Mohawk, Lover, Spy" says the subtitle), named Jack Absolute. (The name is from a Sheridan play --the playwright appears in this story --he apparently "stole" the name of his friend for the character.)

Despite the trappings of farce and humor, the writing is (to me) lovely and straight-forward, with the characters themselves having all the wry wit and humor. Jack is a stand-up guy who has reasoned views of various personalities and both sides of the conflict.

He's set up as a larger-than-life character, and does have the background and abilities to back it up, as well as finding himself in incredible situations that just add to the glamour --and yet he remains very human and knows it. I really enjoyed how such usually clichéd situations and characters are dealt with in a fresh and interesting way.

In the kind of breakneck adventure for which the term "rollicking" was coined, C. C. Humphreys embroils his protagonist Captain Jack Absolute--onetime officer, full-time rake, and part-time spy--in a duel, a chase, witty repartee, sex backstage (and onstage) at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and guest appearances by General Burgoyne AND Richard Brinsley Sheridan. And that's just the first three chapters. In 1777, Jack and his Mohawk Indian blood brother Ate, ordered back to America to serve Britain in the fight against American independence, find themselves battling ferocious colonial militiamen, British incompetence, and their own doubts about which master they serve. The audacity with which Humphreys purloins a character out of Sheridan's classic stage comedy, The Rivals, for his own devices, is matched only by the skill with which he pull it off--with plenty of dash, wry cynicism, bloody action, and a surprisingly tender and gripping love story that sneaks in the back door and turns the entire enterprise on its ear. Bravo!

This is a cleverly constructed historical thriller, essentially a spy novel set in the 18th century. Humphreys, a former actor, has been clever in constructing the characters and plot. The hero, Jack Absolute, is the hero of Sheriden's The Rivals. This is certainly not the first time a figure from English literature has been pulled out to feature in a set of historical novels. George Macdonald Fraser used this device to considerable effect in his Flashman books, where he pulled a minor figure out of Tom Brown's Schooldays and made him into the hero of this set of satirical novels. As in the Flashman books, the hero's story is mixed in with significant real historical figures and events, in this case, the American Revolution. Competently written, Jack Absolute is fairly entertaining though Humphreys has perhaps made the plot too complicated.

This was an entertaining first book of a trilogy concerning the adventures of Jack Absolute, British Army Captain and spy, during the Colonial Period in American History. One of the previous reviewers compared the character of Jack, taken from Sheridan's play THE RIVALS, with the bully Flashman of Hughes's novel TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. Sir Harry Flashman, VC, is a scoundrel given an imagined life after being expelled from Rugby School by the late Scottish novelist George MacDonald Fraser. The only real comparison is that both Jack and Flashman are fictional British Army Officers from other works. Jack is basically a good person who finds himself unwittingly drafted by General John Burgoyne to spy on a sinister group of over-zealous Freemasons called The Illumintai who are stirring up the "American Rebels" against the Crown in 1777. Flashman, on the other hand, has no redeeming qualities and is an admitted bully, coward, liar, and shameless womanizer, among other things. His misadventures are also incredibly funny. To compare the two is unfair to C. C. Humphreys. He's his own man, like Jack, and a fine storyteller. I heartily recommend this book.

If the "amateurish" comment meant this was not solve-the-whodunit material, I agree -- it's good bedtime, or escapism, reading. I don't think it should be classified under either Mystery or Suspense.

However -- the historical basis combined with modern elements made for an interesting plot. Some good characterization and steady unfolding of the storyline kept my attention until the end, and of course,

"Life is too short to read a badly-written book." ~ T.M.

I have rarely read a more absurdly amateurish book. In the hands of, say, Nevada Barr, the same story would have leapt off the pages. However, we have a book chock full of the inexplicable and the unexplained, cliches, improbabilities, two-dimensional stereotypes, characters acting out of character, ... in fact, to be brief, thoroughly poor and unskilled authorship.

See story summary above.

I enjoyed this mystery thriller. The locations in Alaska and the flashbacks to NYC all helped to bring a little more substance to this story. The characters did come of as a little shallow in my opinion. I also think a little more history could have been wrapped in the story. As with any fiction novel, I rarely read the whole jacket summary, for it gives away far to much information and leaves few surprises. I get the protagonists name and read the first couple sentences and that's usually all.

Recommended.

I'll give this book the benefit of the doubt and rate it as 5 stars, as I have not read it. But the plot is interesting: a biopharmaceutical company launches an expedition to retrieve (in secrecy) the viral remnants of the 1918 influenza outbreak. The place: the frozen landscape of Alaska. The target: deceased gold miners from the period.

The plot was so enticing in fact that I used it myself in an earlier book. If you'd like to read a carefully researched, and much longer version of this story (at 662 pages) check out Ninth Day of Creation, ISBN 0967571294.

Most likely Davis just had the same idea as I did, though I seem to have got to print earlier. Personally, I think an outbreak similar to 1918 is just a matter of time, so the information contained in the "Spanish Lady" genome is valuable, and will remain so. I might also point out that between me beginning and finishing my book, the genome was in fact located at the Armed Forces Institute in the wax-preserved autopsy material of 1918 victims. The results of the genetic sequencing of this material should be completed within the decade...

Leonard Crane, author of Ninth Day of Creation

Nick Scott is back for another round of her favorite airplane archeology (bet you didn't know such a thing existed!) in THE RETURN OF THE SPANISH LADY. Author Val Davis sets up a nicely suspenseful scenario, but the cover blurb gives away everything, so I never had a chance to figure things out with Nick. Don't read the cover blurb!!!

I might have rated the book higher, if the cover hadn't taken away all the suspense. The 1918 characters were well done, and I liked those parts best. And if you haven't read TRACK OF THE SCORPION, the first Nick Scott book, you should do so, as this is a very nicely written and unusual series.

This is the worst book on global warming that I have ever read. The authors do not believe that there are any technical solutions to the global warming problem, which is itself, a technical problem. Technical problems are always best solved by technical means. They believe that those living in technically advanced nations must reduce their energy use by 80% in the next 22 years. No police force, however brutal, could possibly enforce such a policy in a democracy.

There are several possible technical solutions such as CO2 sequestration in the deep ocean, deep saline wells, or oil wells. There is the possibility of storing CO2 as carbonate in oceanic calcareous plankton. There is global cooling via contrails, absorption of CO2 via siliceous rocks, and other technical procedures. The authors are either ignorant of technical solutions or have arbitrarily chosen to ignore them. Their prescription for solution will create great unrest and the biggest economic depression the world has ever experienced. Any other book on the subject is better than this one.

I am a biochemist with a long-standing interest in economics and the environment. I definitely agree with the authors that climate change is a serious problem that is too often ignored. I wish I could agree more with their proposed solutions.

The authors' emphasis on replacing transportation by automobile with bicycling and walking is excellent. I especially liked the discussion of how more use of cars leads to congestion, which leads to new roads, new parking facilities, and changing patterns of development to serve car owners. This in turn leads to more use of cars. I agree that this self-perpetuating loop is an often-overlooked part of the American love affair with the automobile. I would have liked to see more on the role of parking regulations in this. Most localities in the U.S. have parking regulations that require businesses and residences to provide large numbers of parking spaces. The effect of this is to favor cars over other types of transportation, like walking, that don't require all that vehicle storage space. For more on this, see Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking. Eliminating such perverse regulations would be relatively easy to do and would go a long way toward cutting down on car usage.

The authors are very concerned about the effects of fossil fuel use on the climate. I am concerned about climate change. I think we need to be careful, though, about global warming predictions. The climate is a complex system for which solid prediction is very difficult. We need to be prepared for climate shifts in any direction, not just warming.

The authors believe shortages of fossil fuels are minor compared to the problems caused by climate change. I disagree. In my opinion, the effects of Hubbert's oil peak are very likely to lead to soaring energy prices in the next couple of decades. Coal is not in much better shape. Frankly, basing our society so extensively on highly polluting fuels which are already in short supply and rapidly becoming even less available is ridiculous, climate change or not. The sooner we learn to get along without fossil fuels the better.

The authors state that "Economic growth clearly cannot continue to be pursued as if there were no ceiling on the use of resources or on the capacity of the planet to cope with the consequences of ignoring them." This is great! The authors don't mention this, but some economic theorists are now taking this into account. For example, Herman Daly has developed the concept of the Steady State Economy, which focuses on constant levels of resource inputs and outputs, rather than traditional economic growth. Keep in mind that once basic needs are satisfied, traditional economic growth has been shown to have remarkably little relationship to quality of life. For more on this, see Robert Lane's book The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.

In the section on carbon capture and storage, the authors said nothing about carbon capture using shellfish, which store carbon in their shells in the form of solid calcium carbonate. Does anyone out there know why this approach is so consistently ignored? Maybe there is some problem with it that I don't understand.

The authors and I part company when it comes to the Kyoto Protocol and carbon trading. The authors particularly like a system of personal carbon allowances and spend a lot of time analyzing this. I think the system they propose is fine, but I'm skeptical about its usefulness in the long term. My opinion of both Kyoto and personal carbon allowances is that such elaborate regulatory systems would be difficult to set up and nearly impossible to enforce fairly. I think it could all too easily become a swamp of corrupt dealing that would just not produce the needed reductions in carbon emissions. International tensions are already high; this situation is only going to worsen as fossil fuel supplies decrease. The world does not now and will never have the ability to establish such a regulatory scheme with the necessary teeth. We must find ways to accomplish this country-by-country. Fortunately, controlling fossil fuel use would have benefits in each country; international agreements are unnecessary. For example, importation of fossil fuels means that huge amounts of capital must leave the country. Spending this money at home on conservation, wind power, sidewalks, and the like has surprisingly large benefits, such as improving the social cohesion of a country and making its economy less vulnerable to external shocks.

The authors don't think that carbon taxation could be made high enough to make a difference to the climate. Is that a reason not to use it? After all, carbon taxes could be combined with carbon trading. The authors miss the fundamental point here that carbon taxation could work fine if it were presented as a tax shift rather than a tax increase. Shift taxes away from taxing income to taxing gasoline and other fossil fuels. Make the shift as close to dollar-for-dollar as can be managed. Why would people object to this? After all, if they really wanted to, they could take the savings from their income taxes and spend them on gasoline. Income taxes are essentially a tax on employment--but employment is something we want to have. Taxes are necessary for all governments to function; taxes work best when they are collected on activities we DON'T want.

The book's biggest omission is one that other reviewers have mentioned: it says too little on the subject of population. We have no hope at all of achieving a sustainable economy without a stable population. This is as true for the U.S. as for the world as a whole.

Overall, though, the book is well written and interesting.

The Suicidal Planet is communist propaganda, brought to you with a heavy dose of scare mongering. The ultimate agenda is global Marxism via control of energy supplies. Why should anyone pay for this nonsense?

This book not only really lays it on the line (we must act in powerful ways very soon to slow down global warming), it also suggests some powerful techniques to get there. Equity and markets are often see at odds, but the proposed `tradable personal carbon allowances' actually creates markets to force equitable long term reductions in carbon emissions. This would supplement `cap and trade' systems for industries at national or regional levels, while a similar 'contraction and convergence' scheme would operate between countries at the global level.

At the personal level, everyone would get a fixed carbon allowance for a fixed time period. If they used less then their allowance during that period, they could automatically sell the unused part on a computerized market to someone who needed more. Both seller and buyer would have strong incentives to reduce their carbon emissions, as the seller would profit by doing so, while the buyer would suffer less of a penalty. Moreover the sellers would tend to be poorer, and the buyers richer, hence the majority of citizens would become powerfully invested in the campaign to slow, and eventually reverse, global warming.

Carbon taxes, by contrast, often face strong popular resistance due to their perceived inequity. But the authors should consider that an equitable carbon tax would be a sales tax on the transactions of the computerized market. The revenues could then be used help needy individuals and small businesses to reduce their carbon emissions. In addition, small businesses could be included in the computerized market based on the number of full time employees or something similar.

These concepts have been developed in Europe, especially Britain, where two of the authors work as researchers. Europe has moved ahead of the US on environmental issues over the last couple of decades, also on some social justice and equity issues. However the authors go to far in regard to equity with the contraction and convergence scheme. Contraction means an international treaty that sets a binding schedule for the global reduction in carbon emissions to a `safe' level over the next few decades. Fantastic if you can get agreement and can come up with a reliable enforcement mechanism.

Convergence means that at the end of the contraction, the citizens of each country or negotiating regions will have the same average per capita carbon emissions as every other country. This would be a powerful way to enlist the enthusiasm of the poorer countries, as they would actually be allowed to increase their per capita carbon emissions until they matched the reduction in carbon emission of the rich countries.

The problem with this convergence scheme is that it ignores the population explosion. Many scholars of global resources consider the current world population to be far in excess of a sustainable population, that an orderly to reduction to one or two billion will be necessary, or we will experience severe "ecological overshoot and collapse". Already many resources are severely depleted, even renewable ones like forests and fisheries. Water wars are forecast and oil wars are already occurring.

World oil production is stagnating now and within a decade it will be in serious decline, past `peak oil', with the global economy not far behind. The authors make a big point in chapter 3 "Eyes Wide Shut" that most people are barely at the awareness stage, far short of action, in dealing with global warming. Yet the authors themselves show little awareness of the severity and consequences of these resource issues. They appear to be unaware, for example, that certain estimates of oil `reserves' are many times in excess of what experienced oil geologists consider to be economically recoverable, even with improved technology.

The imminent decline of oil will shift the economic focus to coal, which may hold out for a few more decades before it too goes into decline, despite current claims that coal `reserves' will last hundreds of years. This will become the major political/economic battle of the coming generation: Take global warming seriously or burn ever more coal in a futile effort to maintain our non-negotiable life styles.

Equity means nothing if human civilization collapses or extreme poverty for all, so the current notion of convergence must be replaced a technique that reduces both carbon emissions and population. Of necessity the carbon reduction part must focus on the first world, while the population reduction part must focus on the third world. However the goal is the same: average equal carbon emissions per capita between all regions of the world.

But to get there the incentives must change. A good way would be to set a per capita target for carbon emissions based on population. Let T = target for a safe level of global carbon emissions / target for a sustainable level of world population. Then T becomes the per capita target for each country or region, to be reached however they so choose.

When people think of radical population reduction, they often think of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But, given a little time, there is a perfectly benign way. To be sure it would require a major cultural shift in some regions, with an extensive media campaign and leadership from all major sectors, including religion. But it is possible. If all women, on the average, have only one child, and that child, on the average is born in the mother's mid thirties, then the population will be reduced by a factor of 4 in 80 to 100 years. Thus both family size and spacing are the key here. When there is a will there is a way.

The Suicidal Planet is an easy read for those seeking a quick overview of practical ways to slow down global warming. But it has a few limitations, so readers should take it as a provocative starting point for an even deeper dialogue.

This is the book to read on climate change and what can be done about it. The authors write concisely and persuasively, using well documented facts and theories. The writing is informative and can be easily understood.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes the problem. Many of us know and understand the problem, but the book goes beyond simply explaining the problem to discuss the potential growth in energy use and the public's current response. The second part discusses current strategies to ameliorate climate change and explains why those strategies (including technological innovation and carbon sequestration) are inadequate to solve the problem. The third part recommends a two-step solution. The first step is contraction and convergence, in which countries move toward a common per capita emission of green house gases. The second step is personal carbon allowances. The authors make a good case that contraction and convergence can break the international stalemate on Kyoto, and that contraction and convergence, and personal carbon allowances, amnount to the fair and equitable way to save the planet. There is also a section on how we could live within the carbon allowance.

The authors' conclusion is that we will get climate by negligence or climate by choice -- and climate by negligence is unaccepable.

I like the writers and the stories but so much cynicism in one book required me to put it down before finishing it. It's been a year since then and I'm sure I'll pick it up again but I'm not rushing to it.

I bought this book based on a recommendation of a classmate. This book does have some, keyword, some, hilarious personal Hells but, those are few and far between.

In the hands of humorists, all those things that really get under your skin suddenly take on a new life--an amusing one, that doesn't sound like whining! I found most of my personal pet peeves: the cashier that puts the receipt in your palm, then the bills, and then the change, so that there's no way you can put any of that in your pocket or purse before the groceries or the change spills. The dreary terror of little league baseball. Children's choirs. Leaf blowers. You name it, it's here. ... Is this an important book? Well, it's important to laugh at these little things so the really big things you can't do anything about don't get the best of you! It's 101 examples of smart thinking about our dumbest things.

Alexander Pope once wrote, "Wit is that which has oft been thought, but never so well expressed." The present volume, 101 DAMNATIONS, well illustrates Pope's observation.

The "damnations" in this quirky compendikum refer to pet peeves, people, and things that irritate and annoy. Although we could make our own list of such vexations, chances are we would not have the wit to express them so humorously.

For example, Louise Rafkin writes: "Women's handshakes . . . Some are limp as old celery, others flaccid as dead fish." And Merrill Markoe says about cell-phone etiquette: "These people seem to think they cannot really go anywhere unaccompanied by a phone. And along with this obsessive-compulsive need for continuous phoning, any respect for the privacy of others has melted away like the snows of yesteryear."

Tailgaters. Telemarketers. Operating manuals written in arcane, esoteric language. People who play rap music at jet-plane decibel lebels. "Reality TV" programs. The list goes on and on.

Here are excerpts from three of the best:

David Ives: "last year a record 16,238 people had near-death experiences in this country--some 200 of them without financial gain and some 50 without appearing on afternoon talk shows. . . . Many people know Kubler-Ross's five steps to death: anger, denial, blame, grief, and acceptance. Thanatologists now recognize the five steps of near-death: surprise, delight, shlock, mild boredom, and a book contract."

David Martin: "For years, I assumed that the frustration visited on me by bureaucrats was just the inevitable result of dealing with large, inefficient organizations. But now I suspect that there's a secret school somewhere that rains these cruel creatures. A school with a catalog like this: Welcome to the Bureaucrats' Institute, and congratulations on choosing a career as an obfuscation and complication specialist. Start out learning the basics, from paper shuffling to the telephone runaround. Then move on to the specialty skills you'll need to add red tape to any organization."

Michael Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz, from Thirty Things I HATE about Hell: "1. It's really cliquey. 2. You get this weird vibe from Satan if you joke about him being in that SOUTH PARK movie. 3. The biting black flies out by the Lake of Everlasting Fire. 5. No ESPN. C'mon! That's part of basic cable! 6. The snotty e-mails you get from your friends in heaven. . . . 25. Hitler. You're not funny, so stop trying."

There are at least a dozen selections that will have you laughing out loud. As you read this book, keep in mind the wisdom of George Bernard Shaw: "When anything is funny, search it for a hidden truth."

And, as the writer of the Book of Proverbs puts it, "A cheerful heart is like a good medicine." Tickle your funny bone, wipe that frown off your face, and indulge yourself with laughter with 101 DAMANATIONS.

Michael J. Fosen is the author, illustrator, or editor of some fifty books for both adults and children, including the biennial humor series, MIRTH OF A NATION.

With an all-star lineup of funny folk, you'd expect something hilarious, and that's often what you get with 101 Damnations. Grouped into 9 circles of hell, everyone from Calvin Trillin to writers for the Letterman Show take off on golf, Tuscany, customer service, going bald -- you hate it, they cover it.
The essays are all very short - some hardly worthy of "essay" status - and most are thought provoking, and will definitely get a rise out of you. Some of the pieces, however, are truly hilarious, such as Kevin Shay's take on people who mime being on the phone by using their thumb and pinky, Camuso and Seely's movie trailers, and Andrew Marlatt's "My Left Hair," which describes the true feelings of the haired vs. the un-haired.

Overall, you will absolutely not be dissapointed with this book, and at times you will laugh out loud. Ideal for any bathroom reading library.