Nicholson Books

This is a book of someones life

which is something that is so interesting.

I would have loved to have known her.

What a life she had.

This book is very fascinating about the life of Coco Chanel. It reads interesting, capturing the reader's attention. The old photographs are interesting, as well. I was pleasantly surprised and not at all bored by her life story and the manner in which it was told.

Not only beautifully written, it gives you a perfect picture of a fascinating era and a fascinating woman. In a way Chanel lived ahead of her time, on the other hand she had a perfect sense how to translate that into the time she was living. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

I love the book I purchased, but would love another Chanel book covering all of her designs. Would you plese recommend a book that has mostly colored photographs of her design? WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT M Miller

Perfectly perfect. Everyone should have this book, and give it as a gift! Wow.

This is a good instructional book. It tackles several Dreamweaver techniques and offers a good variety of time saving tips.

The book really stands out because of its real world application. Almost every section can be applied to real design and development situations. The projects are well designed and the techniques are, for the most part, easy to follow and are backed by sound design.

Unfortuneatly, many books in this series are very simple, "show and tells," lacking useful instruction. That is not the case with this book. New Riders hit the target on this one.

This book is filled with solid, practical tips that will help any developer broaden his/her knowledge and skill set within Dreamweaver MX. It covers what most users are asking for in the Newsgroups. A worth-while investment in time and money.

This is my first time in here but over 15 years of doing emerging technology training. Here is my beef:

1) It is an excellent hands-on book, including its own CD, that you can practice and practice to get the feel of how you want your webpage content to be arranged in a professional manner;

2) There are 13 projects to work with and their authors have thoughtfully arranged it carefully for you with the aid of required files from the book's CD and ONLY you to pick it up and go!; and

3) Unfortunately, Chapter Project 3, prepared by a Brad Halstead, is arranged quite shoddy and not quite complete, if not very confusing. You get the feeling that he did this in a hurry. It even requested you to contact a website to get an updated snippets that was needed for this project, instead of within the enclosed CD. The website then suggested go elsewhere and yet updated snippits were not clearly identified anywhere. What is even worse, this idiot even left a support email address and we still have no response from him. A note to the publisher - this was a wasted 29 pages of this remarkable book. We had to hit another fairly decent book, "How to do everything with Dreamweaver MX", to make up for Brad's sloppiness.

However, I would love to see more of this "MAGIC" for other popular web development software. Keep up the nice work!

I have been a fan of the New Riders series "Magic". This one does not fail to deliver. As with other Magic books, even if the project is not up your alley, there are so many great gems of tips and tricks that only add to your skills set.

Inspiration is intangiable product of this book too. Many of the projects will spark some kind imagination here.

Just can't recommend this book enough. Best on the market.

This book is filled with solid, practical tips that will help any developer broaden his/her knowledge and skill set within Dreamweaver MX. It covers what most users are asking for in the Newsgroups. A worth while investment in time and money.

Twelve-year-old Freeman Mills is a new arrival at the Wendover Home. A facility for troubled and unwanted children. On the outside it appears to be a nurturing place, but it is not. Yes they teach the three Rs, plus religion, but there's a lot more going on at the home than meets the eye.

Evil and mad type scientist Dr. Richard Kracowski arranged for Freeman to be in the home and he's not a very nice guy. Basically he's studying electromagnetism and how it effects the mind and guess who his subjects are. Mysteries abound at Wendover, people disappear.

Freeman sees the world through old movies and he has the ability to read minds. He's like that because of the lab rat like way his father raised him and he's deathly afraid of The Trust, an organization that makes even the most rabid conspiracy theorist's version of the CIA seem tame.

But Freeman isn't the only one at Wendover who has special powers. There are others. There are dead people milling about too, as Wendover used to be an insane asylum. And there is something going on in the basement. Actually there's a lot going on in this crazy, but fascinating story. The bad guys are very bad. The good guys are vulnerable and in danger. The plot is first rate, the characters jump off the pages and you'll feel like you're right in Wendover Home along with Freeman. Better watch out.

Reviewed by Sara Hackett, who just adore's her husband Jack Priest's books Ragged Man, Gecko & Night Witch.

The Home by Scott Nicholson is one of those rare books that is actually impossible to put down...and it's impossible to just walk away from after you're done reading it. The story is truly haunting. A marvelous read, cover to cover.

The first half of this book was exciting, entertaining and full of promise. Though the second half jumped off the ride and became boring. I don't know what happened. I've never seen a book do this. Weird. a 5 out of 10.

THE HOME is one of the first books I've read in awhile that I could not put down, and one of the first since reading The Exorcist in the 70s that I physically got chills while reading a book! The characters are interesting and very vivid, and the evolution of Freeman Mills from the selfish know-it-all with a chip on his shoulder the size of basketball to a kind-hearted kid trying to save the world was a well-written and emotional transition. Nicholson does a great job in eliciting empathy from the reader toward Freeman, the 12-year-old psychic who was tortured by his father and his past and his friend, Vicky, the poor misfit who only wanted her parents to love her, and the analogies Nicholson uses to describe both are unique, thought-provoking and poignant. THE HOME is one of those books that really makes you think about not only the thin veil between life and death but the way life is seen through a child's eyes.

Nicholson, in my mind, is one of the best new writers to emerge in the last decade, and I look forward to finishing THE FARM, his newest book, and encourage all who love a good ghost story to buy THE HOME. It's well worth the investment!

Lynne Logan
Author of The Crime Chronicles of Decker Zane

I couldn't put this book down. It was so well-written and so suspenseful. The plot's very unique and well-presented and the characters all bring something entertaining to the table. I look forward to reading more from this author, who, judging from this selection, could very well be on his way to claiming Stephen King's title as the literary world's "scare master."

I decided to pick up this book after being lucky enough to have Mark Cirino as a teacher at NYU. Throughout Name the Baby I felt a connection to the narrator. I felt that his emotions and motivations really came through. I also liked the subtle, dark humor of the writing. It's a deep read, and a novel that you can go back to again.

A fascinating confessional of a young man coming to grips with his girlfriend's suicide and life in general. The author is obviously talented and one to watch.

It feels as if Mark Cirino is telling you the story himself in person. I liked it because he talks about places I've been. It was easy to relate to.

After meeting the author and finding him interesting, I decided to read his book. Although Name the Baby does seem to be a bit of a 90s Catcher in the Rye, its poignancy and freshness set it apart and ensure that it's not just a Salinger re-hash. Sam's style of thinking (or, more aptly, Cirino's style of writing) moves to a real-thought tempo. We are not just inside Sam's mind for the sound bites, but for his whole journey. Name the Baby is filled with asides, which give the novel its flavor. Sam's ruminations are often funny, usually insightful and perceptive, and almost always jaded. Cirino's language is crisp, direct, fluid, alive. His style of writing is the real gem of the novel.

Mr. Cirino's novel is passionate and captivating. The main character's discourse as he weaves through New York City grips you and never lets go from page one to the end. I have read many reviews that compare this character to Holden Caufield, but Caufield was just a naive boy. This character possesses a toughness. He seems to understand the pulse of the City and how to not only survive it, but groove with it. I highly recommend this book.

This book shows how a marriage can and is a legal arrangement as well as an emotional one. From inside the story, the author describes how his parents built a life and marriage together that protected the whole family legally, while allowing both partners to express themselves sexually in outside relationship, mostly of the same sex variety. This was so much more necessary in an earlier time than it is now. About the only thing we can liken it to in contemporary society is the marital arrangement between parties that allows one of the parties to immigrate to another country.


Higher Love (Lavender Line) (Lavender Line)

The centre of the book and its raison d'etre is Vita Sackville-West's own extraordinary memoire about her life so far including her catalytic 3 year affair with Violet Trefusis. The affair came very close to wrecking her life with her husband, Harold Nicolson, who she loved deeply but no longer felt sexual passion for. Harold threatened to leave Vita and it was only under such pressure - on both sides of the affair - that it was ended. The memoire, written in 1920-21, and discovered by Nigel in 1962 begged a narrative and an afterword; Nigel provided this and presented an eloquent, classic book which has never been out of print since it was published in 1973.

Whether this marriage is to be admired as much as Vita, Harold and Nigel felt it should be admired is for the reader to judge. What makes it most extraordinary is the homosexuality of Vita and Harold and the fact that their once discreet open marriage is now in the public domain. They would each be getting on for 120 years old today but they still seem so fresh that readers, whatever their sexual preferences are, might learn lessons (positive and negative) from them even today.

Towards the end of her life in 1961, Vita wrote (in a letter to Harold not included in 'Portrait') that she had been 'madly in love' with Violet but the affair was now 'passion completely spent'; she wrote 'the true love that has survived is mine for you, and yours for me.' She also gently rebuked Harold for not explaining his own homosexuality in the first place. 'It would have saved us a lot of trouble and misunderstanding. But I simply didn't know.' Harold's reply, if there was one, is not published.

The intimacy of Vita and Harold's relationship is contained in their voluminous correspondence. Harold's diary, Violet's letters and Vita's mother's diary are also key sources for this book. All these were at Sissinghurst in the early 1970's. Nigel separates Vita's memoire into two chapters, draws from the other sources and adds his own voice and, to a lesser extent, that of his brother Benedict. Vita's relationship with Virginia Woolf is affectionately documented. The book created the legend of Vita and Harold who led compartmentalised lives, had multiple relationships, multiple careers and remained devoted to one another. It is a well written and well crafted tribute.

`Portrait' is, as it would be, slanted in favour of Vita and Harold. This book could not be the whole truth or a detailed portrait of the marriage but it is a portrait of two fascinating and productive people. Because of the scandal it caused, Nigel was excoriated by some for publishing this book and in essays written afterwards he would defend his decision and fill in some of the gaps. But the gaps are justified in this labour of love because it is written from such a personal stand-point. This is a wonderful read and is well recommended.

Both those unfamiliar with the extraordinary life of British aristocrat Victoria (Vita) Sackville - West and those who have read Victoria Glendinning's compelling Vita (1983), Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928), or Sackville -West's own multiple published works of fiction, poetry, or nature and travel writing will thoroughly enjoy Portrait Of A Marriage (1973). Composed around a posthumously discovered confessional manuscript Sackville - West wrote and hid away in 1920, the book's chapters alternate between portions of Vita's nuanced, forthright manuscript and son Nigel Nicholson's more objective recounting of the facts in the lives of his parents, Sackville - West and her spouse, author and diplomat Harold Nicholson.

Chiefly remembered today for her garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent and for being the romantic ("Better to gloriously fail than dingily succeed"), daring, and bisexual inspiration for Woolf's historical, gender-addressing novel Orlando, Sackville - West was a temperamental, multifaceted, and deeply emotional woman who followed the dictates of her heart and defied the conventions of her era to what many would think an alarming degree. As her manuscript clearly reveals, Sackville - West was a very human, self - honest individual who was conscious of her moral and ethical weaknesses and who continually struggled with her wayward nature and its debilitating affects on her husband, children, and extended family. Today a hero to some and a somewhat ridiculous figure to others, readers of Portrait Of A Marriage are likely to come away with more than a modicum of sympathy for the not - entirely enigmatic Vita; throughout her life she managed to straddle a great number of seeming paradoxes and today remains potent proof that many Western conventions concerning love, marriage, parenthood, sexuality, and friendship are as not as tightly mapped out as most would generally like to believe. Unlike fellow writers and contemporaries Hilda Doolittle, Djuna Barnes, or Jean Rhys, her excesses, dependencies, and emotional vacillations did not ultimately undo Vita, either psychically, artistically, or socially. Admittedly, Sackville - West was a child of privilege and remained financially comfortable most of her life. However, her managerial skill, expert monetary planning, and her own hard work as an author, radio broadcaster, lecturer, and internationally acclaimed gardener went a long way towards securing that position.

Portrait Of A Marriage and the story of Sackville - West's life may be the ultimate romantic tale of the twentieth century, though one in which the glamour of wealth, palatial family estates (365 - room Knole), creative talent, international fame, and steadfast love were offset by dark episodes of betrayal, spousal abuse, transvestitism, emotional violence, and apparent child abandonment. Remarkably, Vita's story was ultimately a happy one, and the end of her life, relatively serene. Increasingly a loner with age, Sackville - West sequestered herself in her private tower at Sissinghurst, where she continued to write novels and other literature. But men and women continued to fall in love with her and she with them; as Victoria Glendinning wrote, "For Vita the great adventure was never over."

I recently re-read this book for research on the novel I was working on (having not looked at it in many years). Unlike many things read in youth, it was even more searing and electrifying this time than the first go-round. Perhaps that's because the subject matter has become routine (there are even web sites devoted to polyamory, lesbianism, bisexuality, open marriage, etc.), while the emotions that Vita Sackville-West's affair with Violet Trefusis have not been dealt with by this explosion of sexual variety.

This book is not for the faint-hearted. It's not great writing, as it was meant to be a personal diary of Vita's passage through fire, and is not literary in that sense. But given the weakness of Vita's professional writing (most of which has been forgotten), it's perhaps a good thing she couldn't re-write and mar the freshness and raw emotion of this tale.

The book has been a Bible for some, including the protagonist of my novel. It has that kind of "read me if you dare" emotional dynamite.

Despite the fact that Vita Sackville-West was the subject of Virginia Woolf's Orlando as well as her lover, the author of numerous books, and a world famous gardener, she still manages to be a somewhat enigmatic character. This unusual and engrossing portrait, written by her son, contributes a great deal to bring substantial light on Vita's very interesting life and loves. Nicolson is generous in quoting her verbatim from her diaries, the most compelling of which recounts her wild affair with Violet Trefusis, during which the two women fled to Paris pursued by their husbands, where Vita passed as a man by dressing as a wounded soldier. This is one of the most passionate accounts of any love affair I have read.

Nicolson's act of documenting his parents' intimate passions is a great contribution to literary history. He did us a great service by writing this book and in quoting liberally from their own writings, in many ways lets his parents speak for themselves. Any one interested in Bloomsbury, women of the left bank, passing women, feminism, gay/lesbian/bisexual history should make this part of their library.

Another translation of the New Testament? Why? Don't we have enough Bibles already? I would not have paid any more attention this book, except that I noted Lattimore's other works.

Lattimore's background was interesting primarily because he had a reputation as a translator of Greek classics. He has translated most the major Greek works, from Homer to anonymous Greek tragic poems - a quick search of Amazon's store will show.

His approach to translating was to remain faithful to the original Greek as possible. Unburdened by dogmatic concerns, he is able to focus on the text itself. For those of us unschooled in ancient Greek, this is an unequalled opportunity to get closer to the writers.

Reading this translation was a very different experience from other translations. For one thing, the text is not printed with chapters and verse numbers - it flows as normal prose. Punctuation is kept to the minimum (in keeping with the ancient texts), so there is none of the "red-letter" versions of the Gospel that are popular among those who feel that Jesus's words are of greater importance than the rest of inspired Scripture.

The writings are now made alive with Lattimore's fresh perspective. I read Paul's letter to the Phillipians and felt the warmth and closeness that the Apostle had towards this community. I found myself reading the letters as a whole, instead of reading them in parts. Traditional bibles are designed almost as reference material, neatly indexed and divided to facilitate skimming and readings of short verses.

This translation is an excellent complement to the Bible.

Lattimore quite simply and directly removes the polish of committees and redactors in his stunning translation of the New Testament. Rather than making sure the language is stately and in keeping with other translations from the Greek all the way back to Jerome and his Vulgate, he makes the restoration of the voices -- and thus the points being made -- of the NT authors his objective. When the Markan author gets tangled up in the Greek, Lattimore doesn't try to hide that...when Paul is agitated over a point with his addressees, Lattimore's rendition of his letters allows that agitation to come through without politesse.
The result is a version of the New Testament that breathes and lives. Matters of content or specific-word-translation are not vastly different from some other 20th-century "new versions" or from the source material: what is radical is that he strives -- and succeeds -- to let the authors say what they actually said instead of "a version by a committee who wish Mark's Greek had been better".

Additionally, the format eliminates internal verse-numbering, etc. So the reader can simply read -- and is less likely to succumb to the urge to proof-text. Lattimore's splendid translation is more about passages in context -- when the verse/chapter divisions are removed, one finds flowing prose in which the author's messages are crystal clear.

For study purposes I use several different Biblical translations, but the one that travels with me on my 3-hrs.-in-each-direction daily commute and which I use for devotional reading is Lattimore's. It is the one that lives.

Richmond Lattimore's translation of the New Testament is a valuable addition to a thinking person's library. It gave me a much better sense of the styles of the various authors, and perhaps, even of their personalities. In many ways it is fresher and more readable than the church-approved translations, while at the same time being pretty literal. That being said, however, it's not quite as fresh as all that. Even though, for instance, Lattimore's avowed goal was to let the Greek style dictate the English style, Mark's use of the historical present in telling his stories is nowhere in evidence. In other words, despite the fact that Mark wrote in a narrative style which resembles that used in my old neighborhood ("And he says to me...", or "Then he goes...") for some mysterious reason, Lattimore, like virtually all other Bible translators, wants us to read Mark as a more elegant writer than he actually was. Why? In the arena of vocabulary, too, Lattimore makes a number of capitulations to tradition which are far from fresh. A prime example is the word 'ekklesia', which Lattimore, like every standard version, translates by the exclusively Christian term 'church', even though 'ekklesia' was a generic term for any group of people meeting/assembling for any purpose, sacred or secular, public or private, lawful or unlawful. Why use a misleading term like 'church' which suggests an institution and organization which was not yet contemplated in the first century? Similar theologically and culturally anachronistic views are reflected in other word choices, and even in capitalization practices, which again, were not thought of at the time the NT was written. I still am looking forward to the day that a translation allows the Biblical text to speak its own language, without pushing agendas not actually present in the text!

Lattimore's translation of the N.T. seems so new it's like it just came off the presses. It's so fresh you can smell the ink in your nostrils. It's so vibrant you can easily forget it's the N.T. and then forget to put it down. It's so gripping that instead of dreading the daily dose of a couple of verses, you look forward to overloading on your next fix. At least I do, and that's after reading countless translations, studying all sorts of helpful guide books, and knowing the Sunday School stories front to back.

But Lattimore's translation is different. He's a Greek translator not a theologian, concerned not so much with making the text say something in English, as with letting it live. And stripped of adornment, the Word is pulse-pounding, heart-racing, blood- pumping alive. "Wait a minute," someone may say, "Are we talking about the Bible?" Yes, we are. But reading Lattimore's version, one sees why people think the story is so exciting.

The genius of this book is in what it leaves out. So not the stately King James. Nor the Not-so-New International Version. No chapter or verse numbers. The four Gospels sound like stories, and the letters of St. Paul read like letters. Lattimore's other genius is his uncanny ear; he often uses simpler words than other translations, but sometimes he chooses bigger ones. Some parts flow together connecting half-remembered tales into a larger narrative, but others are told at a breathless pace: "we did this, and then we did that and then this happened, and then some other thing occured." This is exactly how someone, face to face, would relay a story.

In the preface Lattimore modestly says, "I was struck by the natural ease with which Revelation turned itself into English." I am struck with how he turned it into great reading.

This is a highly readable "direct from the source" translation of the Greek NT by a greek language scholar. It is in the form of a novel with headings at the top that provide the chapter and verse markings rather than in columns, a refreshing difference. The translation is very up-to-date, meaning in St. Mathew's gospel "virgin" has been translated as "maiden" (you KNOW what I'm referring to). If you must read the NT, this one will be a good one for you. Lattimore's translation is a lively curious read. The style of this translation reads like a novel, not a religous text per se. If you have difficulty with the typical dry biblical prose of the NT, this translation will work for you. I can now say that I've read the entire NT and can make my own judgement on it. I've compared other bibles to this one (RSV and KJ) selecting random passages and it is a true translation.

If you can Only Read One trade "science" book in your life, this should be the one. It is a slow-motion whirlwind trip into the depths of time and life on planet Earth.

I was as enthralled as other reviewers with the amazing facts in this book. My favorite: bacteria don't age; they can die from accidental causes but "programmed death" started with eukaryotes. The authors show that death is necessary for organisms (like us) that practice meiotic cell division.

But this book is far more than a random collection of facts. Margulis and her collaborators do an amazing job of assembling an understandable model of life using parts carefully selected from a vast body of biological knowledge. While a one-sentence definition is still elusive, the reader builds up a picture of life's most pertinent characteristics, as exhibited by the truly astounding diversity of living things on this planet. By the time I finished, I was satisfied that the authors had answered the question.

You don't need to be a biologist to understand and enjoy this book. Its beauty is that the greatest scientific thinking on the most complex topics has been presented in common english, with necessary scientific terms explained as they are introduced. If you are intrigued by the question of life, I doubt there's a more complete, accurate, understandable, and enjoyable answer available than this book.

The hardcover edition of this book (What is Life? by Margulis & Sagan) is a treasure in my extensive library. Clever writing and beautiful photographs bring out fascinating ideas. This is a book to be savored.

I was totally engrossed with this book and for several weeks it became
an appendage. It is filled with awsome facts and enlightenments.
My only disappointment was that I am just an animal like all others on
this earth and nothing was said concerning what happens to me when
fungi take over. I mean "Me". Where do I go? Right now I beleive I just
plain die. It makes life a bit harder to face, to think all this is gone when
I die. Can anyone recommend a book that will help to give me an idea
as to what happens to my consciousness when I die??

Lynn Margulis, as with many popular science writers, tends to get in a little bit of trouble both with her professional peers and with the devotees of her professional peers. Academic disciplines are a bit akin to competing schools of secular theology, with much (if not most) of the difficulty arising from what the layman *thinks* the masters say. Margulis is decidedly *not*, for example, the flaming vitalist or Earth Mother worshipper that some have painted her as (due to her subscription to the "Gaia" hypothesis), and Richard Dawkins was much more modest in his conception of the "meme" than some of his successors (notably Susan Blackmore) have been. If one can get past such hangups the thoughts of great scientists are a good deal more subtle than we sometimes think, and Lynn Margulis is no exception.

She and her son Dorion Sagan both have a flair for lucid, non-technical writing, and the picture they paint--of life as a thermodynamically open system, responding as much to symbiosis and cooperation as it does to extinction and competition--is both intellectually interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Her neo-Darwinist cohorts might occasionally overstate the role of competition in natural selection as much as she can overstate the role of cooperation, but there seems no reason to deny that both factors play important (and complementary) roles in the natural world. Dr. Margulis' tour of the microbial and multicellular worlds is truly fascinating; I found myself learning more than I ever thought I would want to know about fungi, mushrooms, bacteria and protists, and remaining delightfully thirsty for more. Where she is making some hypothetical propositions, she usually clearly identifies these and doesn't pass them off as fact. However, she does include a certain paean to Gaia--the idea of biological life on earth functioning as a coevolutionary, self-regulating ecosystem/organism that helps maintain an earthly enviornment conducive to life as we know it--that some (like myself) might find compelling, while others will find it irrelevant. The jury's still out on Gaia, but she makes a persuasive case for why such a concept should be considered alongside the larger question of "what is life?" Overall, a worthy addition to the armchair scientist's bookshelf, alongside anything by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, or Ernst Mayr.

Brad Watson's stories satisfy by their authenticity, their origins in the oral traditions of the American south, their foundations in the rich, fertile soil of its storytelling culture.
His characters move freely from page to mind, loitering with the reader, lingering, as if they were old acquaintances who needed to be nowhere in particular. They sift through the detritus of their lives, recovering seemingly little at first, discovering only later the clarity that often tags along with realization and acceptance.
It is Watson's language that animates these stories though. His sentences, often approaching poetic, delight, demanding to be read again and again. Words cavort ,mingle in a surprising synergism. Many of the stories are deceptively essayistic, adding to their authenticity.
This is a fine collection by a gifted writer.

This is a collection of 8 short stories, each one with a dog involved, its behaviors and relationship with the people driving the story. There is no doubt that Brad Watson is a talented writer. His characters jump off the page presenting themselves to you forcefully. Some of his metaphors and similes left me shaking my head mumbling, 'how did he come up with that?'

Having said that, I didn't enjoy Last Days entirely. This is a sad, ugly book. I had no problem with the melancholy characters and the beautiful way Watson presented their lives. But some of these stories are inhabited by ugly people doing cruel things, both to other people and to the dogs in their lives. If you are a dog lover as I am, be forewarned that dogs die in this book at the hands of selfish, arrogant characters.

I was fully engrossed with the characterization and development of not only the dogs but the intensity of their relationships with humans. The reviewer who claimed she's an animal lover but hated this is obviously not a person with depth and would probably be more comfortable reading happy-go-lucky fluff. This reading is for intelligent, introspective types with a penchant for thought provoking and imaginative storytelling. For days, even months after I was thinking and even dreaming of these short gems. It takes a lot to touch me and Watson delivered.

...and this collection of stories - each of which deals in some way with `man's best friend' - is good writing from start to finish. Every single story in this collection is compelling and well written - and some of them are absolute jewels. Watson's characters are drawn with care, embodying realism as well as the author's empathy for them. The cadences of their speech - and thoughts - are perfect. Their lives are at once flawed and filled with wonderful things - rather like the lives of each of us. Watson's use of the dogs in the stories to bind them together as a whole is a gentle and natural one - it never comes across as contrived.

`Last days of the dog-men' and `A retreat' offer poignant and painful looks at how our lives can spiral downward when relationships come to an end. As easy as it would seem for these stories to be maudlin and depressing, Watson never allows that to happen. The humanity of his characters remains strong, even in their seemingly darkest hours - whatever we might think about them, and what actions brought them to their sorry states, they are never less than real. `Agnes of Bob' and `Bill' are touching portraits of couples - widows and the dogs with whom they live after the deaths of their spouses. The relationships between the women and the dogs are as unique as those that develop between close friends. `Seeing eye' gives us a glimpse of not only the practical aspects of the assistance a guide dog offers to a visually-impaired owner - Watson manages to get inside the relationship and reveals deeper aspects of it than might appear at a casual glance. `A blessing' is a little surreal - a couple attempts to acquire a new dog, and an evident wrong turn leads them to the home of a man who is extremely odd and malevolent.

The only two stories I have to say that I didn't enjoy as much as the others would be `The wake' - which seemed to me to be a little `forced', and reminded me of the old song by the Velvet Underground, `The gift' - and `Kindred spirits', in which a man tricks his friends into becoming accomplices in a crime he has committed. Even this last story had many redeeming qualities, however - and I certainly can't dismiss the collection because of these two quibbles.

Watson's prose is strong and gently descriptive - so much so that I often found myself smiling at his talents, discovering that I had, over the course of a few pages, come to picture characters and whole scenes in my mind without noticing where he was leading me. I've heard lots of good things about his novel THE HEAVEN OF MERCURY - and after reading an excerpt from it in the stellar collection STORIES FROM THE BLUE MOON CAFÉ, and then the excellence contained in LAST DAYS OF THE DOG-MEN, I'm looking forward to it even more.

Brad Watson's collection of stories in Last Days of the Dog-Men possess a kind of restless ennui that is frequently attempted but rarely captured so poignantly. In his Southern-gothic style, Watson explores characters in relation to dogs in each of his stories, though sometimes this exploration takes a back seat. The stories aren't always directly about dogs; moreso they are stories with dogs in them. Read, and find the perspective of a guide-dog waiting to cross the street, the perspective of an old woman living with her dead husband's dog, the perspective of a man having a dinner party while a dog is dying beneath his house. Watson doesn't use archetypes here -- there is rarely a "man's best friend"-trotting-through-a-field-of-flowers to be found in the entire book.

We meet smart dogs who can balance meat on their nose, dumb ones that bark until eventually they can't remember what they're barking about, guide dogs, dying dogs, dogs with old ladies as owners, greyhounds that come between relationships, and chocolate labs in a Darwinian struggle over the creek bed.

This book isn't so much for dog-lovers as it is just a book where dogs happen to be a motif. There are several stories where dogs are shot, drowned, or given up. Thus, it isn't so much the loving portrayal that might be expected, but nonetheless I think it explores many facets of dogs' character, however unglamourous or cruel that can sometimes be.

Even as a cat-lover, I thoroughly enjoyed every story.

Shadowlands is my all-time favorite play to read on a rainy day, on a lazy Sunday, and even on a rainy, lazy Sunday! The story of the famous Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, moves the reader to tears, laughter, and reminds us that life is a precious gift. Lewis marries a divorced woman named Joy, which creates a conflict with his solid religious beliefs. Joy's severe case of bone cancer causes Lewis to question the God in whom he has so firmly belived, despite his famous speeches written about the purpose of pain and suffering. As Lewis is forced to grow up through experience, one can share his emotions and close the book with renewed faith and hope for our own lives. Nicholson writes eloquently, bringing to life Lewis' speeches on pain and suffering within the play. The play is based on the actual lives of Lewis and Joy.

Even most well-written plays are an absolute bore to read. But William Nicholson's SHADOWLANDS (title taken from the final chapter of the final book in THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA) may present a different case to C.S. Lewis fans the world over.

Fans of the movie will be pleased since they are already familiar with the lines spoken by the characters. But all Lewis fans will be fascinated because this play gives the reader a front row seat (no pun intended) to the life that Jack and Joy had together. Even though the story does take certain liberties (for instance Joy Gresham had two sons, the elder named David), it's still a rewarding way to spend one's time and is short enough (100 pages) to read in one sitting.

If you're looking for a more factual account of C.S. Lewis's life with Joy Gresham, I would recommend the book LENTEN LANDS by Douglas Gresham.

When I first read this book and my husband and I first watched the film together, he was well, and we were very happy. It was a second marriage for both of us, and we planned on making up for time lost in, unsuccessful, unhappy marriages for both of us, with another twenty or so years of happiness together. He has since passed away after we fought his Cancer together for almost two years. Obviously, the story of Shadowlands has taken on new meaning for me. I have, since his death, read "Grief Observed" by C. S. Lewis, and I would recommend that anyone reading "Shadowlands", also read this essay. It isn't very long, and it helps incredibly to bring some meaning to these tragedies of life.

This is a great play, but an earlier review incorrectly identifes Lewis as the author of the "Alice In Wonderland" stories, when he wrote the Narnia Chronicles.

William Nicholson's Shadowlands (adapted for a radio theater production by Jenny Sullivan and Martin Jarvis) is the story of C.S. Lewis and the American poet Joy Gresham. Lewis, famous for his "Alice In Wonderland" fantasy for children, was a teacher at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, and an avowed atheist throughout his early life. But in 1931 Lewis converted to Christianity and became an outspoken defender of the faith until his death in 1963. Shadowlands is based upon this his meeting Gresham and how their lives became entwined with a shared love that transformed all of Lewis's relationships, including his relationship with God. A full cast that included Martin Jarvis as C.S. Lewis and Harriet Harris as joy Gresham, under the direction of Jenny Sullivan, makes Shadowlands a superb acquisition selection for personal, professional, academic, and community library collections.

Since I was writing a literature review on zoopharmacognosy I wasn't sure if this book was going to be too "light". It was in fact a lit review in itself with many interesting insights from the author and known scientists in the field. Although it could be more critical the points made are still valid. A must for the study of zoopharmacognosy!

This is a totally fascinating, wonderfully illuminating book--it's become a favorite for me. Cindy Engel is a superb writer.

Have you ever wondered what happens to a wild animal that breaks a leg? What does it do if it gets infested with parasite worms, or if there is are many infectious bugs around?

Read this book to find out.

The author takes a very scientific approach explaining how there are important differences between romantic notions about animals magically knowing exactly what they need to stay well vs. hard scientific evidence of an animal intentionally seeking and engaging in self-medication.

In truth, animals don't magically know what is good for them, for when animals raised in captivity are let go in the wild, they can die from eating poisonous plants that no one taught them to avoid. It is also exceptionally difficult to meet a scientist's rigid definition of self-medication which entails a observation in the wild of 1) an animal is visibly unwell 2) it starts eating things that it normally does not eat 3) it goes out of its way to find those things to eat 4) it becomes visibly better after consuming the unusual `food' in a reasonably short period of time and 5) there is a clear cause and effect link between the treatment and the condition.

Such observations are hard to make because most animals are healthy and fit most of the time just by living a naturally healthy lifestyle with varied diet, plenty of exercise etc. If you get plenty of vitamin C in your diet, you will never get scurvy. Similarly, many animals from mice to primates to elephants eat clay on a regular basis - it seems to prevent many forms of disease.

Yet such examples do exist. A most interesting one is the widespread consumption of rough textured bitter leaves which are carefully folded up accordion-style before eating by primates. The texture and folding is used to catch and mechanically expel worms.

Animals have been observed chewing on the root of a specific tree known to protect against malaria, during times of heavy infestation. Animals watch other animals to see what is safe to eat, or to see what they are eating when sick.

Native people have watched what animals eat to learn how to treat human ills. Bears are a particularly good source of information. Western societies have in turn, learned much from native peoples about medicine.

There is a lot to learn from this book, both in terms of what we can apply in our lives, as well as just remarkable facts from nature. Like: why do so many animals seemingly intentionally get drunk on fermenting fruit? Could it be that alcohol reduces stress which is keeps animals healthy and thus has an adaptive benefit?

Did you know that when a giraffe starts eating leaves from a tree, the leaves turn bitter in 10-15 minutes. Furthermore, the nearby trees sense this is going on, and their leaves turn bitter as well. Yet this only happens to the leaves that are in reach. Those that are higher up in the tree out of reach, remain succulent. The trees are not wasting any more energy than needed. The giraffes have learned that after they graze on one tree, they need to go quite a distance (45 minutes or so) to find trees that did not get the signal from the last feeding.

Highly Recommended Reading!

I have recently received this book at home and I started to read it. At the moment, I finished the chapter one and I started the second one and I can tell you that this book is very interesting. I had not listened about other similar book with this topic.
Really, I recommend that Wildlife and Zoo's vets read this book, in order to learn more about the means to be healthy in the wild.
We can learn more of Wild's medicine and probably to be able to use it in a captivity environment.

Congratulations To Cindy for this book!!

This is the book I have been waiting for! Herbalists and other behavioral scientists such as nurses who have encouraged the public to look at their health behaviors will be buoyed up by Engel's research and ability to deliver the "message". This is a must for all health science collections both personal and institutional. Timely.