Ford Books

Eiko is a woman, not a man

It has full page color pictures of all the costumes from the movie and some of the original sketches. It also explains Eiko's inspiration for his Academy-Award winning costumes.

I noticed a few errors in Dr Forcyk's review, so feel urge to write a few correction in the hope that people will not be mislead.

Montgomery's strategy:
Refer to the Post D-Day phase lines, which suggested that Montgomery did intend to hold round Caen and thus attract the German armour, while allowing the American armies in the West to seize Cherbourg, as having a working port was vital to the success of the Invasion (though this did not work as the Germans destroyed Cherbourg rather effectively).
The so called "myth" about Montgomery's original strategy failing stemmed from arguments at command level based on the success of certain battles (eg Goodwood) failing to live up to Montgomery's hype. This was purely down to Montgomery's sometimes arrogant nature which upset certain people (Tedder, Patton etc). For rather obvious reasons, Montgomery could not publish his strategies at the time (the Germans would then find out), and so naturally the press asked questions as to why the Allied forces (particularly the British and Canadians, who I might add faced substantially better equipped troops, including the majority of the SS that was deployed in Normandy, and certainly more Panzer Divisions then the American armies) had appeared to stall in Normandy.
From this arose the "myth" of Montgomery's failed strategy. Though admittedly the British 3rd Division had failed to capture Caen, which was not planned for but was down mainly to problems on the beach, and the arrival of the 21st Panzer on the afternoon of June 6th.
And the relief of the 6th British Airborne Division was not the responsibility of the 3rd Division. The Special Service Brigade (the Commandoes) who landed at Ouistreham relieved the embattled 6th Airborne until their reinforcements arrived at 21:00 on D-Day.

The area East of the Orne was "operationally sterile"? Hmmm. Maybe so, if you call the holding of the entire Eastern Flank of the invasion "sterile."
Without the Orne bridges and the Breville Heights, and by not destroying the Dives bridges, the 21st Panzer could have quite easily rolled into the Eastern flank of the 3rd Division and perhaps got onto the beaches. The Orne bridges were arguably the most important single objective of the entire invasion!

Dropping an Airborne Brigade onto Caen?! I doubt that would have achieved a lot. Except massive casualties.

Hillman: The "funnies" were trapped on the beaches. Delays and the incoming tide, plus of course the Germans, resulted in traffic jams on the beaches. The British at Hillman were left with little armoured support. Bear in mind that this was the first time the 3rd Division had been in battle, and so over-emphasised the threat of Hillman and the German forces that were in there. Yes it could have been by-passed. But it wasn't. Fortunes of war.

"British failed to achieve all their D-Day objectives"? May I remind you that the 6th British Airborne was the ONLY D-Day unit to complete all their tasks (though the Merville battery was re-occupied later).
Caen is an issue that military historians will be arguing for the rest of time, only by considering all the options and decent sources (not Stephan Ambrose!) can we begin to get some understanding of what happened on D-Day.

The latest Osprey campaign title on the British D-Day landings at Sword Beach and the 6th Airborne Division landings represents a mixed big. On the one hand, Sword Beach is a well written and attractive synthesis of the critical eastern flank of the Allied invasion. On the other hand, this book is hardly original and in light of the excellent Battleground Europe title Sword Beach by Tom Kilvert-Jones last year, Ken Ford's effort seems to be following in well-worn tracks. Despite the plethora of other titles on this subject, Ford renders a yeoman's effort and has produced a worthwhile summary of the British campaign in and around Sword Beach in June-July 1944. The title deserves five stars for content, three for originality and thus a compromise four stars.

Ford begins with a short section that introduces the origins of the battle and emphasizes that the seizure of the French city of Caen was regarded by Montgomery as the key to the British landing. After a detailed chronology, the author provides a short section on opposing leaders and then a seven-page section on opposing armies. The author makes good points about the British substitution of self-propelled artillery and anti-tank in the assaulting 3rd Division, but tends to unduly denigrate the German 21st Panzer Division. Ford is a bit vague about the 21st Panzer - which is odd because Colonel Hans van Luck's account of that unit in Normandy has been available for more than a decade - and suggests that the unit was not really combat worthy and composed of cast-off men and equipment. The real reason the 21st Panzer was not rated fit for service on the Russian Front was due to its lack of a Panther tank battalion, but it substituted an assault gun battalion and was a fairly heavy unit. The reason for the unit's poor performance on D-Day was not due to poor leadership or poor quality troops but rather, due to high-level confusion and tangled command control relationships. Various German commanders, from Runstedt and Rommel, down to the local Corps and division commanders, vacillated between going after the British airborne, going after the sea borne landing or waiting to launch a properly coordinated assault in strength. Ford then covers the opposing plans in seven pages. The British 6th Airborne Division landings are covered in 17 pages, followed by 29 pages on the Sword Beach landings, 6 pages on expanding the bridgehead after D-Day, and a short aftermath. A ground order of battle for both sides is provided. This volume has five 2-D maps (British 6th Airborne landing areas, German defenses in Sword Beach area, the landings on Sword Beach, the Allied lodgment at the end of D-Day, the Battle for Caen) and three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps (British airborne landings, Sword Beach landings, 21st Panzer counterattack). There are also three excellent color battle scenes: the seizure of Pegasus Bridge, No. 4 Commando moves inland and the capture of Hillman position.

Overall, Ford's summary of the British operations in this sector of D-Day is accurate and succinct. Unfortunately, the author falls into the ex post facto trap of suggesting that once the British failed to take Caen on D-Day that Montgomery then planned to pin down most of the German armor in the eastern sector of Normandy so that the Americans could break out in the west. This is a post-war rationalization pushed by Montgomery's adherents, which conceals the reality that Montgomery had intended to seize Caen and exploit with armor on the eastern flank but he repeatedly failed to accomplish this. Furthermore, the author tends to blame the 3rd Division commander for failing to seize Caen but ignores the plethora of missions given to this unit (seize Caen, link-up with airborne, link-up with Canadians, repel German counterattack and eliminate resistance nests in sector). Although landings of the British airborne were a great tactical success they were operationally sterile because Montgomery wanted to drive southward, not eastward. If Montgomery really wanted Caen on D-Day, he should have dropped at least one airborne brigade on the northern outskirts of Caen, which might have resulted in seizure of at least half the city on D-Day. Too much effort was put east of the Orne River, for negligible gain. The British drive inland was also delayed for seven critical hours by the 150 German defenders in the Hillman position behind Sword Beach (one wonders where all the 79th Armored Division "funnies" - tanks specifically designed to deal with bunkers and obstacles - were during this period); the author views the capture of Hillman as an out-an-out victory but in reality, the stubborn defense of that position upset the British timetable.

Readers interested in Sword Beach should use this book in conjunction with Kilvert-Jones book, because taken together they pack a lot of information and insight on this subject. Standing alone, Ken Ford's book lacks some of the depth needed for really understanding why the British failed to achieve all their D-Day objectives and why the German counterattacks were so ineffective. Readers should also consult Robert Kershaw's excellent Piercing the Atlantic Wall, which offers more material on the British landings. Oddly, Ford makes little mention of Allied casualties at any point, so readers will have to consult other sources for that type of detail. However one area where Ford out-classes Kilvert-Jones' book is on information about the battlefield today, particularly concerning the German bunker-turned museum in Ouistreham and the Merville Battery.

I have the original paperback version of this book. It is an adaptation of Steve Jackson's Generic Universal Role-Playing Game System (GURPS) to Terry Pratchett's Discworld as a Role-Playing environment. A pretty good "GURPS Lite" extract of the basic GURPS rules is included as an appendix (32 pages) at the end of the book, so you technically don't need anything other than pen(cil)s, paper, and ordinary six-sided dice to run and play a Discworld-based Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG).

For a Discworld fan who doesn't want to play role-playing games, this book may still be of interest: it includes informative capsule summaries of most of the major characters in the Discworld novels, and Pratchett-approved insights into the metaphysics of the Discworld universe. It also contains many monochrome drawing by illustrator Paul Kidby.

For a Discworld fan who has never tried role-playing games, but is interested (and has a reasonable number [2 to 6] of similarly-interested freinds), this is an excellent choice. For a hard-core FRPG player, they probably already know about (and have) lots of GURPS stuff - the relavent parts can easily be used with and in a Discworld GURPS game.

While this was explicitly intended to be (and is) an "all-you-need" gamebook, there is now a "supplement" as well: GURPS Discworld Also (a backhanded pun on "Too" instead of "Two"), that is basically more of the same - more Discworld-specific character-information, rules, etc. The supplement is not needed, but is nice to have...

The Discworld RPG is a great read even if you don't play GURPS. It's not bad even if you hate RPGs. The book is bursting with source material and backgrounds - it's not uncommon for personality descriptions to take a full column. If you're a gamer, it's nice to have the actual writeups. If you're not a gamer, the art and small storylines through the book are still entertaining. Of particular interest to me was the magic section - not so much for how it's used in the game but for the Disc's philosophy of how it works. Also, without this book, I never would have known that all native-born Ankh-Morporkians are born with Disease Resistance. And a shiv...

Being a kid growing up in the 80s, Muppets were everywhere! And I loved them (Grover is the best). This was one of my ultimate favorite books as a child. And I still love it. I only hope my copy is in good enough condition when I have kids so that they can love it too!

Bert & Ernie go shopping. They have a list, but keep getting distracted. Will they remember the oatmeal that they started out to get? Rhyming foods, like "cheesie pleasie" children pick up on and use again and again. When she was 3 to 5 it was one of her favorite books.

good in depth. Goes well beyond setable limits

this is the best reader ive ever come across. its essays are thought provoking and intriguing. i highly recommended it for students who need to engaged.
cheers!

A very detailed discussion of the Ford Motor Co. Styling Department and the story behind some of the most acclaimed automobile designs from Ford's golden years, The "fat fendered" ford products, the inception of the Lincoln Cotinental and the 39 Mercury are all intersting stories for auto enthusiasts.

The book is well researched and detailed with good photos. The auther has given attention to personalities, some of whom I personnally knew and who were well drawn by Mr. Dominguez.

A good read for those interested in this narrow subject.

Anyone interested in car design must read and keep this book. Should be a mandatory reading in design schools and design departments of every automaker. Either as a historical document or as an artistic reference, this book is a feast of information and images.
The author does not pretend to be an amateur car designer but instead humbly becomes a communication channel between the reader, Bob Gregorie and the memory of Edsel Ford, and a very good one indeed.
Kudos to Henry Dominguez for not having succumbed to the temptation of using modern color pictures and having gone to the process of selection those amazing images from The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village archives. Kudos to Henry Domiguez for such a fine book.

Race separates the message of the poetry, and I don't like that. I have seen that often with Ms. Giovanni's work. I don't like to read something and feel like I am being pulled into a debate of slavery and hostility. I think that Ms Giovnanni is a very talented poet, and very accomplishes scholar, but I find it annoying to see race such a mainstay in her poetry.

The more we try to remain together, teh further apart we drift....

My mother gave this book to me when I was 11 and it had a profound impact on my life. I have recited the EGO-Tripping poems more than I can remember. My greatest joy came when I heard Nikki Giovanni recite it in person. I would reccomend this book to any young African American boy or girl as an introduction to poetry, it is truly a work of art!!!!!!!!!!!!

The cover copy is misleading, I'm afraid. What happens in this story is that after Syndi buys an old dollhouse at a yard sale and Marshall buys a doll to go in it, the doll disappears and a new girl, Maggie, appears who looks almost exactly like it! What is the connection between Maggie, the dollhouse, Maggie's house which looks just like the dollhouse, and Maggie's parents, who look way too old to really be her father and mother? This is a fast-paced, exciting, and slightly creepy story.

A great EERIE book. It could've been more interesting and of had a better subject than a dollhouse but in EERIE INDIANA things are just weird.

I used this book in an Electronics class in 1972 and it is indeed a good book which explains DC electrical fundamentals in an understandable manner. But......

Do not be mislead by the previous reviewer, who said it was great for learning vintage electronics, including tube radios. This volume does no such thing. This is basic DC electricity. There is nothing vintage about it. DC circuits with passive components were the same 35 years ago as they are today. Vacuum tubes are not addressed until volume 3 of this series, Vacuum Tube and Semiconductor Fundamentals.

To be truthful, although I have a nice fuzzy, nostalgic feeling about this book since it was my first introduction to the subject, one would be much better served to learn from one of the current texts on the subject, such as the ones by Grob or Floyd. I studied Electronic Engineering Technology in college after using this book, and was surprised by how much I did not know. In other words this book glosses over a lot of things that you really should know, and avoids other topics altogether. It is a nice book, but there are much better out there these days.

I have to say the same about volume 2 in this series, AC fundamentals.

On the other hand, volume 3, Vacuum Tube and Semiconductor Fundamentals is a book that I would recommend to someone who wants to learn about vacuum tubes. The semiconductor portion is hopelessly dated and was not very well written to begin with, but the vacuum tube presentation is clear and understandable. Just know that Volume 3 just covers vacuum tube fundamentals. Sytems, such as complete radios are not addressed until Volume 4.

This is a great book for learning and understanding how to diagnose vintage electronics, especially tube radios and electrical circuit fundamentals and function. A really Great Book!

This is one of the best ship encyclopedia's out right now. It doesn't have as much information as the Jane's Ship books, but makes up for it by the shear number of ship types. It covers every era from Ancient Egypt to the Ships that are now in the Persian Gulf.

I've been a naval enthusiast since my parents took me to lower Manhattan and I saw a great spectacle: The liners, United States, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and the Olympia all together; It was 1956, and the great liners were still the preferred mode of travel. This book is filled, perhaps I should say crammed with ships of all types. To date it is the best single volume available on a wide variety of ships. The author, the former senior officer of the United Kingdom's carrier, "Invincible", has done a fine job of giving the reader an overview of each vessel, including naval, merchant, and passenger type ships. This book was printed in the United States in 2001, yet, from various comments made by the author throughout the text, I suspect the manuscript was written no later than 1999, since so many of the great new vessels such as the huge Queen Mary 2 and the world's largest fully rigged clipper ship (5 masts of sails ), "The Royal Clipper" are all absent from the volume.
Although this book was printed in the United States, the content of this book is distinctly European with only the most familiar ships from the United States given space. This is, of course, not surprising since the author is British. In fact, only three of the 6 original US frigates are listed. I also found the book's Index to be quite lacking with many omissions of vessels described in the body of the various sections. For example, the "Gorch Folk II" is listed as the training ship for Germany. The original training vessel, the "Gorch Folk" is only mentioned as being sold to Russia as the "Tovarich". This is in error, since it was sold to the Ukraine, not Russia. In addition, the "Tovarich" is not listed in the index, neither is the Gorch Folk. Recently, in fact, the Gorch Folk was sold BACK to Germany being bought by a private group of German citizens and renamed the "Gorch Fok". As an "encyclopedia", it would have been a great plus to have some provision for an updated "Annual" edition, or at least a revised version. Of course, that costs more than most publishers would ever be willing to spend.
To summarize, despite shortcomings, this remains the best single volume covering hundreds of ships. It attempts to provide some type of descriptive listing of a clearly huge undertaking--a comprehensive listing of all the world's ships. It is printed on superior glossy paper and cloth bound. Each entry has a colour drawing or photo. There are about four entrys on each page, with superior ships such as the "Victory" and the "Titanic" given at least a full page.
I would enthusiastically recommend "The Encyclopedia of Ships", despite some of the issues I pointed out. It is also an excellent book for just browsing through. For those who want more on ships, I would also highly recommend to the reader the excellent comprehensive set of books collectively known as "Conway's History of the Ship". Under that title are actually 12 distinct and separate books in a series edited by Bob Gardiner and featuring the world's best marine and nautical contributors. Most of these books are available right here at amazon.