Nicholson Books

This is a superb book, reviewing the gospels from a historical standpoint that is neither preachy nor dismissive. Grant boils down the contradicting mess of the gospels and picks out the salient points that appear to have meant the most to Jesus. He reminds us that everything Jesus did, that we now take for proof of divinity and compassion was done to ensure the spreading of his message that: The Kingdom of God is Now and I (Jesus) am personally bringing it to the people on behalf of my father (God). He backs up this claim with ample proof and good prose. This book is inviting and just the right length, right when you have had about all of the Jesus you can take Grant comes to his conclusion and ends his book on a high note. Lovely.

This has got to be one of the best books I have read on the subject of the historical Jesus. Grant stays mostly impartial throughout the book, although he does continuously put things in light of his own view of Jesus, who he believes was an apocalyptic preacher. Frankly, after reading this book, I'm quite surprised more scholars DON'T proffer this view.
As to an earlier reviewer's claim of misinformation, the fact is that the most recent Bible scholarship agrees with Grant on most of those issues. I sincerely wish that Grant will update his text in the next edition to include more recent scholarly work.
What I most liked about this book was the lack of pushing a political or religious agenda. Many many books about the "historical" Jesus start with a claim and then try to find the evidence to back it up. Grant seems to do what all good historians should: look at all the evidence and derive a conclusion from it. Of course, from a strictly historical point of view, things must be interpreted through a naturalist world view, and this is what will most likely offend most traditional Christians who take the supernatural aspects of the Gospels as literal events inside history. Overall, this is a very interesting read if you would like to learn more about the history behind the Gospels.

Clearly Michael Grant must be in possession of the time machine to be able to make such a bold assertion concerning loving one's enemy and turning the other cheek, "indeed even Jesus did not fulfill it regularly himself." (page 28). I think this statement says it all about the historical worth of the book. How could one trust the author's opinion of Jesus when he states such nonsense that is not supported by any historical source whatsoever? From the aforementioned statement in page 28 the author's biased view of Jesus is made apparent.

The great mystery of history is how the life and teachings of an obscure Jewish Rabbi inspired a world religion. Speaking as an historian, Michael Grant examines the life of Jesus, eschewing the spiritual, and puts forth the plausible opinion that Jesus's Ministry was based on the belief that the Kingdom of God --the end of the world as we know it -- was at hand. The Jews, or at least the elect of the Jews, would be liberated from oppression, the oppressive Gentiles would be punished, and God would rule. Jesus, he speculates, went knowingly to his death to further the imminent apocalypse.

Grant's views help explain Jesus's indifference toward worldly things. Why worry about possessions, religious laws, and rendering taxes unto Caesar when the end is near? This leads the author also to maintain that Jesus's Ministry was based on a mistake -- the end didn't come, and hasn't yet come -- and that he was "a total failure turned into enormous triumph" after his death. As a person, Jesus comes across as somewhat abrupt and intolerant, especially with his intellectually-challenged disciples.

These are pretty strong and controversial views but Grant maintains his historical detachment throughout. One can never be sure whether he is a believer or not. I thought the book would have been better had it included more background on the four gospels -- Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John -- which are almost the only sources Grant used to interpret the life of Jesus (he finally gets around to doing so briefly near the end of the book.) He perhaps presumes more familiarity with the Bible than some of us, including this reader, may have. But all in all this is a most interesting book and the interpretation of Jesus is very convincing.

Smallchief

I have enjoyed books by Michael Grant in the past. I have on my shelves editions of Roman Myths, Tacitus' Annals, The Twelve Caesars, etc. His book, Jesus, originally published in 1977, and recently republished in 2004 with Rigel Publications, has proved to be a deep disappointment.

Reminiscent of Steve Allen's On the Bible, Religion, and Morality, Michael Grant appears to be another very bright author who has fallen hook, line & sinker for just about every heretical or currently in-vogue view of Christ & Christianity for the past 200 years.

To be brief, I will only cite 12 such instances in the first chapter, The Dawning Kingdom of God, from the Rigel edition:

1. Grant says that Jesus' birth at Bethlehem is "very doubtful." --page 9
2. Grant ascribes to the view of multiple authors for Isaiah ("Second Isaiah")--pp 11, 13
3. "the Psalms of David, traditionally though wrongly attributed to the authorship of the king of that name in about 1000 BC..." --page 12
4. "many of the Old Testament passages quoted in the New Testament as prefigurations cannot possibly, to the objective eye, be interpreted in any such sense..." --page 13
5. The gospel of Mark is named as "the earliest" of the gospels to be written. --page 14
6. "not everything that Acts reports is sober history." --page 14
7. "the Book of Daniel (c.160 BC) (is written by) an unknown author." --page 16
8. Jesus made a number of "erroneous forecast(s)" --page 19
9. Jesus' expectation of the coming of the Kingdom "proved to be mistaken", "He turned out to be wrong", "Jesus, too, had been wrong. His ministry was based on an error." --all these quotations come from just one page, page 20.
10. "there is no reliable evidence that Jesus ever believed it would be himself who would come again. For his apparent references in the Gospels to such an even are posthumous and inauthentic." --page 23
11. "the author of John's Gospel, at a considerably later date, is still able to write as if he who will come at the end of the world will not be Jesus at all but another figure altogether whom he describes as the Counsellor (Paraclete) or the Spirit."--page 24
12. Concerning loving one's enemy and turning the other cheek, Grant says, "indeed even Jesus did not fulfill it regularly himself." --page 28

In summary, Grant doubts Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, attested by two of the evangelists, Matthew & Luke; he holds to multiple authors of the book of Isaiah the prophet; he doubts the Davidic authorship of many of the Psalms; he casts aside the many quotations of the Old Testament by the New Testament as being fulfilled in Christ; he holds to the current in-vogue belief that Mark is the earliest gospel (though the most ancient tradition holds the gospel of Matthew with this honor); states that parts of Acts are not "sober history"; again, subscribes to the current in-vogue view that Daniel was written four centuries later than the age in which it was claimed to have been written.

Most telling, however, is the low esteem Grant holds for the founder of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ Himself. He baldly says that Christ made mistakes, was a hypocrite--not holding to His own profession of loving one's enemies. He states that Jesus was deluded in believing the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.

There are just too many issues to deal with in Grant's book for a short critique. On each and every page, one finds one denial after another of articles of faith every Christian of every persuasion would find disturbing, wrong and even blasphemous.

For those intimidated by the likes of Grant, let me suggest a good place to start. Josh McDowell, of Campus Crusade for Christ, authored two books in the 1970's. They were called "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" and "More Evidence that Demands a Verdict." Both books have been combined in recent years into one volume: "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict" by Nelson Publishing. The second half of this book deals primarily with the higher critical schools of thought. McDowell, of course, is an Evangelical, so as a Roman Catholic, I would urge some caution considering McDowell's views on parts of the Old Testament. However, apart from that, I heartily recommend his effort as an antidote to the plague that is Michael Grant's Jesus.

--John Paul

I found this book after several hours of fruitless searching. What I was looking for was a quick, science-based introduction to drugs and addiction that would give me bits of pharmacology, psychology, and neurobiology, with a few cultural, social, and historical ideas thrown in too. Cieran Regan's book looked ideal, but it was a big disappointment.

It does contain some good material, but the logic of the structure is quite difficult to understand. Regan eschews the traditional approach of discussing the subject matter drug by drug (say, one chapter for hallucinogens, one for stimulants, one for depressants) and opts instead for a more freewheeling approach in which neuroscience, history, and cultural comment are mixed in together. The trouble is, there isn't really enough of any one of these to satisfy. The neuroscience is too glossed to be properly comprehensible; the history is about as brief as you'd get in an encyclopedia and doesn't live up to a promise, made in the introduction, that "productive" and "fascinating" patterns will be revealed; and the commentary on wider cultural/social issues, in places, seems as vacuous and unsatisfactory as an all-things-to-all-people politician's speech (take these words on the human genome project on pp150: "The time has come again when science must reshape its therapies for the future. This time we are aware of the choices and consequences.").

What we have, in effect, is a series of fairly patchy essays about different aspects of modern pharmacology and brain function. While this makes for some interesting connections -- which was presumably the intention -- I found it really very confusing. I found it hard to understand what some of the chapters were supposed to be about (I should point out that I have two science degrees and have worked as a scientist for the best part of 20 years). That wasn't helped by the titles of the chapters, which are really opaque: "Funhouse mirrors", "The pharmacology of the infinite", "Nostra plena laboris". If you're going to call a chapter "Neuronal discourse" and it's very obviously supposed to be a grounding in how neurotransmitters work, why not spend two sentences at the start of the chapter saying precisely this? Such mysterious titles as "Nostra plena laboris" (a quote from Virgil that few will identify or understand) serve to confuse rather than communicate. The subheadings inside the chapters are just the same. In trying to achieve a "trendy popular science" feeling, the book loses out on clarity and confuses. If a reader has to work hard to figure out what exactly a chapter or section is trying to communicate, the author and the editors simply haven't done their job properly.

And that, really, is the failure of the whole book. It simply does not communicate. Its dumbed-down, glossed-over science would probably irritate anyone who knew anything about the subject (though some of the cultural and historical material probably would be of interest). On the other hand, the science it does contain is presented in too confusing a fashion to educate anyone who wants to learn about the subject. In other words, it's the worst kind of "popular science" -- no good for "people" and no good for "scientists" either.

A review on the back from Nature claims "The book can certainly be recommended to non-experts who want to know more about mind-altering drugs". I'd dispute that. IMHO, you'll get a far more valuable education (as I did) from the two long articles on the subject in Encyclopedia Britannica.

All over the news, you can find stories about anti-depressants, heroin, cocaine, caffeine and hundreds of other drugs that fill our culture. But what makes these drugs do what they do? How do they affect our minds and alter our state's of consciousness?
Intoxicating Minds by Ciaran Regan attempts to address what goes on in the brain when it encounters different types of drugs, both legal and illegal.
The book is quite short. But it is also quite hard to follow at points. Stories quickly move from interesting antecdotes about the history of a particular drug and it's ancient uses to highly scientific briefs on neurons, electrical waves and brain chemicals. I found myself skipping around a bit when things got a little too complex for me.
It was interesting to learn how schizophrenia works and how certain drugs can block the mental state. There are also some good chapters on alcohol and caffeine. It's amazing how much damage these drugs can do, but yet it's perfectly legal to consume as much as you want.
This book doesn't delve into drug law or psychedelic party tricks, it just takes a somewhat interesting look into how these drugs move around in the brain and work in the crevices of your head.

This book was... disappointing. I expected much more from it. For anyone with somewhat of s scientific background its not worth the money. Everything I read was good and was well written but the depth that it went into was not adequate for anyone except the layperson.

Intoxicating minds is exactly what the title suggests: a text about brain drugs and drugged brains. Mind-bending drugs are the order of the day, including those used to bend the mind back to "normal" and those used so commonly that their effects are taken for granted. The whole gamut of psychoactive pharmacology is sampled and discussed: alcohol and nicotine, uppers and downers, hallucinogens and psychedelics, and tea and coffee.

This book comes with a good pedigree. As so often promised by brain-book blurb, it is written by a leading brain researcher, Professor Ciaran Regan. Regan discusses the effects, pharmacology and historical context of a varied range of drugs in a clear, accessible style.

There is not a great deal of new information presented, but a number of areas are covered, from neuroscience and pharmacology to psychiatry and all the big names and major theories are mentioned. Regan does not try to be cutting edge (read Nature if that's what you hoped for) or propose radical new theories, but offers a decent review of recent understanding and current knowledge in psychopharmacology.

Clearly, the topic is an interesting one, and it is well handled. The depth and interest added by the historical detail add a great deal to the psychopharmacolgy presented. This is most evident in the chapter on hallucinogens and psychedelics, which discusses the history of these drugs' use going back thousands of years: shamen's use of these substances and the association of a potent mix with witches' flight (they spread it on their broomsticks) is discussed alongside contemporary writers' use of LSD.

This is a smashing little book which contains a lot of interesting information. An extensive bibliography is provided, so you can follow up areas that have stimulated your interest - there will be several.

My first read of Regan's was a very nice experience. The book gives you very insightful information into "how drugs work" just as the cover states. It supports everything with ahrd-core evidence (which I love) and does not seem to pick a bias stand point on drug usage etc. and just gives a 'matter of fact' point of view much like a journalist.

Regan does not only point out the effects on drugs on the human body but also the influence of drugs on human beings throughout history...and how they have "reconfigured the chemistry of the body and the brain" throughout our own evolution.

Well read!

Riveting history! This book peels off the layers of accumulated myth and reveals an amazing story. The link between colonialism and Lost Tribe mythology was not something I would have thought of. The evidence for this - as in his chapter on Africa - is utterly compelling. The chapter on the evolution of these fantasies in Japan is scary - it shows the power of the human imagination. Great book, well written, well researched. Deserves a place in any half serious Judaica collection.

Poorly written book. There's a mountain of evidence that shows the account of the ten lost tribes is no myth. The author simply ignores the data that he doesn't like, rather than at least explore it and present a nuetral view. The lost tribes have turned up in India, Yemen, Central Asia,Ethiopia, on the border of Mynamar, the Caucuses,and even intermarried with the Celts. I would reccomend the A and E DVD "Quest for the Lost Tribes" by Simcha Jacobovici instead.

This book clearly does not address any current factual information regarding the lost tribes of Ysrael. He merely states a propostion and spends the entire book justifying his conclusion. Poorly written and disconnected writing style with little or know facts support by any scientific or historical evidence. Certainly not worth reading for those interested in finding plausible and documented information regarding the lost tribes of Ysrael. I suggest reading Babylon to Timbuktu, and current Genetic test results of the East African Lemba tribe.

Mr. Parfitt obviously did a lot of research to write this book - and it IS a fine one, well worth a read... but his agenda is clear from the start: he doesn't believe in the tales. Period.

The problems with his work are that some of the 'best' claims - the Pathans of Afghanistan, and the modern Peruvian and Bolivian tribes, are glossed over or mentioned only in passing. He also rather sneeringly glosses off any suggestion that the Falashas could possibly be of Jewish descent - though the Rabbinical Authorities in Israel, who are NOT known to be liberal in any way, shape, or form clearly accepted their claim. Falashas don't claim to be a 'lost tribe' - yet Mr. Parfitt devotes an entire chapter to an attack on their Jewishness. Even his quotations from other sources - so rich in other parts of his book - are glaringly missing from this chapter.

Another problem is that in the chapters, his date jumping is jarring; one sentence he'll be speaking of some event which happened in the 20th century, zoom back to the 1700s, then back to the 1800s... and give conflicting stories which take place in the same era.

As I said, this book is well worth a read - but he DOES have an agenda, and the book is clearly slanted to fit it.

This is the newest manifestation in writing on the Lost Tribes of Israel. When the ten northern tribes of Israel were gobbled up they became `Lost' and for more then 2000 years people have been speculating as to their whereabouts. This book traces the development of the `myth' of the Lost tribes, trying to show the various claims and hoaxes that have struggled to `discover' the tribes. Tracing this history from the New World to China, India, Africa and beyond the author shows expertly how missionaries and later Jewish researchers came to regard certain tribal peoples as descendants of the ancient Hebrews. The major flaw here is that this is a fascinating subject which this book actually makes boring. Here is a subject encompassing all the world and hundreds of interesting tribes with varying customs and traditions, many of which have been manufactured to appear Jewish in origin. Some of these tribes are practicing circumcision whereas some were shown to have merely `Jewish countenance'. This book immediately disregards that the Ten Tribes even exist, which obviously ethnically they probably do, although they probably are no longer Jewish. Who is to say the Bedouin or the Kurds are not some ethnic remnant of the Tribes of Israel? This book also makes dull a subject by focusing inordanently on the claims of various Baptist missionaries rather then going out and researching and describing the actual tribes themselves. SO while this is a great new addition to the last tribes literature it is by no means an enjoyable read.

Seth J. Frantzman

As of 3/17/2007 this book has not been received...

Recommended by a friend--and is truly an insight to someone that loves
archaeology.

I was expecting an analysis of the British population based on DNA. There was virtually none of that in here. It is a mildly interesting history of Britain.

An adequate overview of the history of the British Isles, but I have to agree with another reviewer's judgment of "not what I expected." I was anticipating a full volume that focused on the pre-Roman history of the British Isles and the different peoples known from ancient sources and archeological investigation. But that is all over and done with in the first fifth of the book. Then it's on to the Romans and medieval invaders like the Angles, Saxons and Vikings -- fairly well covered territory.

This is not a bad book. It's just not special. Caution: have a supplementary historical atlas at hand as you read. There are no maps in the book, a stunningly bad decision by the publisher.

Writing of one's own land carries certain risks. If the view is too internally focussed, the dynamics of human movements are omitted. Yet a study giving an overview of our migrations around the planet may just as easily skip past details of nation forming. National histories have a tendency to reinforce local mythologies and traditions. Global views, on the other hand, overlook those traditional icons. David Miles has struck a fine balance with this study of British societies down the ages.

Britain, he contends, holds a special place in human prehistory and beyond. Situated at the edge of the EurAsian landmass, it was populated by early hominids long before the Ice Age [see "Fairweather Eden" by Michael Pitts & Mark Roberts]. When the ice arrived, humans were pushed back to the Continent, only to return again as the glaciers retreated. One of the more notable archaeological finds is "The Red Lady of Paviland". This skeleton was unearthed in 1823 and later proved to be the first early human fossil. It also was determined that it was a male. The remains are now dated at 26 000 BCE. Yet more appropriate is the Amesbury Archer. This grave, near Stonehenge, contained the body of an adult male who'd been born and raised in the Northern Alps. To Miles, these cycles of migration set a pattern for subsequent settlement. They also laid the groundwork for British expansion in later centuries.

At some point we must ask "Who are the Britons and who are the immigrants?" This is the very point Miles stresses as he explains the roots and impact of people entering the British Isles. The Irish, firm in their ties to their own island, clearly have Continental roots. How close are they to the Scots and other peoples crossing the Channel. The science of molecular genetics, which Miles cites frequently, helps formulate a picture of the origins of the population of The Isles. He further explains that far from enjoying a "splendid isolation" from the Continent, people, goods and cultural norms moved back and forth across those waters. The Channel proved less a barrier than a liquid bridge. Yet, not all the exchanges were trade or brides, as the Roman occupations demonstrate. The Romans added much to the cultural base of Britain, but when they left, there was competition for land and resources.

After the Romans, it's typical schoolroom fare to learn of Angles, Saxons and other Northern European invaders "taking over" Britain. Yet neither these, nor the notorious Norsemen, proved to be displacers of the existing population. All these entering peoples made settlements, intermarried and contributed something new to the society. The last "successful" invasion by William's "Normans" were merely another step in the amalgamation of several populations. That William also brought new forms of administration, such as the Domesday Book of tax records, proved a blessing in land management and legal standards. Nor was the shift of peoples always westward. The religious conflicts of later years saw Poland occupied by so many Scots that "skapy jak Szkot" became a common expression for somebody tightfisted with money and dour of expression. As the Empire grew, so did the number leaving Britain for colonial opportunity.

Miles has produced a work of infinite interest. It's immensely appropriate today given the influx of people to Britain from among its former colonies as well as other lands. His concluding chapter, "New Britons" is an intense examination of today's "problems" with people viewed as "outsiders". Since everybody in The Isles is an "outsider" or the descendents of such folk, the value of this book becomes starkly clear. With the weighty scholarship underlying Miles' narrative, it seems callous to criticise it for lacks. Maps would have been useful, particularly to those not living in The Isles. The "References" demonstrate the extent of Miles' research, but they are organised by chapter - a full bibilography isn't provided. These are not, however, detrimental to what Miles has achieved with this superb work. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

If one skips the heavy musicological anlaysis, there's fascinating history here. Nicholson nails Billie's disputed birth dates and parents. He corrects misconceptions about her marriages. He captures her temperament (and her temper) and details the darkest and brightest sides of this legend from Baltimore -- and her awkward relationship with her mother Sadie. Finally, he depicts better than most "Billiecologists" the day-in, day-out, sing-here, sing-there, hired-here, fired-there nature of this unsurpassed song phraser's checkered career. But as a fan of Nicholson's, I wish this work matched the excellent standard of his Ella Fitzgerald biography published in 1995. "Ella" was compelling precisely because one did not wade through psuedo-doctoral discussions of musicology to find the real, shy Ella -- her music, her style, her history, her art. Alas, this is not the case here. While I still recommend this book to every serious Holiday fan because of the historical gems Nicholson serves up, one cannot but fault the over-analysis. Somehow, I can't picture Billie striding into a studio, cigarette in hand, slightly high, tumbler of brandy on the piano, saying to herself, "Let's see -- I'm going to sing with often conspicuous ornamentation -- vibrato, lelisma, a slur, a mordant, an appoggiatura, plus [my]inimitable growl." Do we really need to know that "Now They Call It Swing" is structured A (8 bars), A (8 bars), B (8 bars) and A (8 bars plus 4 bars)? Or, "She essentially reduces the A theme to two semi-tones, which are repeated a third down and back in the tonic key again . . . An eight bar introduction leads into the 32-bar ternary AABA song, followed by a four bar modulation into the minor and a 16-bar transition of two 8-bar sections before Billie's 32-bar AABA vocal." And, "...the confusing modulation, forcing her to syncopate her entry, making 'I jumped' into 'I-jumped' creating a precedent she follows with the subsequent 'When-I' and the final 'I-jumped'; the 'I' and 'When' would properly be written as an ancrusis, or pick-up." Say what? Spare me, O Lord. There are geographical inaccuracies, too. As a resident of West Virginia, I was surpised to learn that, in this book at least, the Federal Reformatory for Women, where Billie served time on a drug conviction, has been moved from Alderson, West Virginia to "Alderston, Virginia." (At least in some chapters. In other chapters, it's "Alderston, West Virginia." That's wrong, too.) Nonetheless, if you're a serious Billie fan and already have a few good books in your collection, add this one. Skip the musicology and enjoy the documented history of the 30s, 40s and 50s. (For my money, though, the best Billie book of all -- best history, best "feel," best summary -- is Leslie Gourse's 'THE BILLIE HOLIDAY COMPANION: Seven Decades of Commentary'. Last time I checked, it was available through Amazon.com

Mr. Nicholson's book was, for the most part, a clear and enjoyable read. I respected his dedication to uncovering facts about Billie's birth, childhood, and family. I also enjoyed the careful attention he paid to her musical choices because too many people have thought of Holiday as a woman whose genius was entirely intuitive. Those people have neglected the fact that jazz was (is?) an aural art form, studied by listening just as Western scholars learn by reading. Thus, the analysis of her style and note selection did not bother me... when it got too tedious for my taste, I skipped it.

I must applaud Nicholson for stepping on some toes. As a Holiday fanatic, I am used to books and films (including Holiday's autobiography) that leave only a "trace" (to borrow from French philosopher Derrida) of the "real" Billie Holiday. i have come to understand, however, that this trace is, without Holiday's physical presence, all we have of her. Our understadning Holiday requires retelling, re-inventing the story--not merely looking for facts, but being conscious of how we arrange them. Nicholson takes on the Holiday mystique with vigor. Everything from her birth record, to her girlhood rape and addictions to drugs and bad men is scrutinized. Nicholson often uses Holiday's own words (whether ghost-written by William Dufty or not) to de-mystify Lady Day.

I appreciate Nicholson's thorough challenges to the legend not because they replace the mystique, but because they add to our "reconstruction" of Billie Holiday. I disagreed rather strongly with his claim that Holiday's artistry was, finally, less than that of Ella Fitzgerald, but I found his extended comparison of the two women useful for further listening. His remarks about Holiday's artistic rut, performing the same 10 songs repeatedly in live concerts during the 1950s, initially struck me as callous. However, I finally concluded that I appreciated this criticism. Nicholson risks sacrilege, but it's a worthy risk. If no one had mentioned that her repertoire became almost petrified, how could we then ask the question of why it became so? Was she under and specific pressures that limed her repertoire, or were their hints of this staleness early in her career? Nicholson's book, by engaging the written documents, musical recordings, and oral narratives of the "real" Billie Holidays, points the way to interesting questions in our interpretation of her art and her life. I highly recommend Nicholson's book. For fans of women jazz singers, Nina Simone's _I Put a Spell on You_ and Leslie Gourse biography of Sarah Vaughan, _Sassy_, are also indispensable.

This book is much too wordy and in depth about her music rather than her life.

If one skips the heavy musicological analysis, there's fascinating history here. Nicholson nails Billie's disputed birth dates and parents. He corrects misconceptions about her marriages. He captures her temperament (and her temper), and details the darkest and brightest sides of this legend from Baltimore, and her awkward relationship with her mother Sadie. Finally, he depicts better than most "Billiecologists" the day-in, day-out, sing-here, sing-there, hired-here, fired-there nature of this unsurpassed song phraser's checkered career. But as a fan of Nicholson's, I wish this worked match the excellent standard of his Ella Fitzgerald biography published in 1995. "Ella" was compelling, precisely because one did not have to wade through psuedo-doctoral discussions of musicology to fine the real, shy Ella -- her music, her style, her history, her art. Alas, this is not the case here. While I still recommend this book to every serious Holiday fan because of the historical gems Nicholson serves up, one cannot but fault the over-analysis. Somehow, I just can't picture Billie striding into a studio, cigarette in hand, slightly high, tumbler of brandy on the piano, saying to herself: "Let's see: I'm going to sing with often conspicuous ornamentation -- vibrato, lelisma, a slur, a mordant, an appoggiatura, plus [my] inimitable growl." Do we really need to know that "Now They Call It Swing" is structured A (8 bars), A (8 bars), B (8 bars) and A (8 bars plus 4 bars)? Or, "...She essentially reduces the A theme to two semi-tones, which are repeated a third down and back in the tonic key again...An eight-bar introduction leads in the 32-bar ternary AABA song, followed by a four bar modulation into the minor and a 16-bar transition of two 8-bar sections before Billie's 32-bar AABA vocal." And, "...the confusing modulation, forcing her to syncopate her entry, making 'I jumped' into I-jumped," creating a precedent she follows with the subsequent 'When-I' and the final 'I-jumped'; the 'I' and 'When' would properly be written as an anacrusis, or pick-up." Say what? Spare me, O Lord. There are geographical inaccuracies, too. As a resident of West Virginia, I was surprised to learn that, in this book at least, the Federal Reformatory for Women, where Billie served time, has been moved from Alderson, West Virginia to "Alderston, Virginia." (At least in some chapters. In other chapters, it's "Alderston, West Virginia." That's wrong, too.) Nonetheless, if you're a serious Billie fan, and already have a few good books in your collection, add this one. Skip over the musicology and enjoy the documented history of the 30s, 40s and 50s. (For my money, though, if you're just starting out, the best Billie book of all -- best history, best "feel," best summary -- is Leslie Gourse's "THE BILLIE HOLIDAY COMPANION: Seven Decades of Commentary." Which, last time I checked, was available through Amazon.com.

My fellow students and I were assigned this book in an American Studies class. While I have read a great deal of books--have been enthralled by a multitude of works--I keep going back to this book.

It's not that the characters in Equal Affections do extraordinary things, or that the situations presented are extraordinary; what attracts me to this book is because who and what are depicted are real. David Leavitt paints a picture of many issues that affect contemporary American society. Suffice it to say that he even depicts thoughts and opinions of generations past. While his characters' struggles and experiences may not apply to ALL Americans and/or their families, David Leavitt produces images, ideals, ideologies, anxieties, and other issues that continue to play an inherent role in the shaping and structuring of contemporary American culture.

While discussing this novel in my class, I was struck by how much of an impact this book had on my classmates. We each felt the need to discuss our own opinions and thoughts, including factual personal experiences, pertaining to the characters and situations in the novel: April's lesbianism and pregnancy, Walter's infidelity, Danny's demeanor, Louise's illness and her struggle for identity and independence, Nat's affair with Lillian Two-Names. In my opinion, a qualifying characteristic of a good novel lies in what kind of response (not exactly quanitity, but quality) it can provoke.

Although there are some issues in the book that I would have liked David Leavitt to explore more thoroughly (such as April's sexuality and her response to it), I believe that this is a very good novel. To me, David Leavitt conveys the fact that Americans' lives are not "perfect." He tells us that nothing can be exactly permanent, whether in sexuality, love, the stipulations that previous generations and society have placed upon us, and even society itself.

Not a bad read. The storyline kept me intersted; however I'm not sure if that was because I kept thinking that there wourld be some really profound emotional connection with Danny and/or April on the next page. . . ., but it never happened. By the time I finished the book I felt neither cheated out of my time nor extremely rewarded for the effort. We'll see how the next book by Leavitt works for me.

I thought this novel was quite touching and poignant. Leavitt writes with empathy and is able to delve into the different perspectives of each character. He employs restraint in his writing yet it effectively brings out the emotion of the story.

However I thought that this reserved style may be hampering at times, for example the part where the family just witnessed the passing away of Louise. I was surprised that Leavitt didn't explore their emotions further on a deeper level other than just shedding tears; maybe because everyone, including Leavitt himself, was getting a bit tired of Louise's sickness by this stage that no one has the energy for much introspection. I just felt this part was rather 'wooden'.

But by and large, this is an engrossing novel and a good read. The weaving of the characters' lives was well developed and the non-linear progression was a good complement to the story.

Thud, thud, thud went the dialogue; clang, clang, clang went the prose.

I liked the story quite a bit. It was rich with possibilities: a mother who won't stop dying as she questions her religion toward the end; a yuppified gay couple (one of whom is her son) that lives in the suburbs; a lesbian-questioning-pregnant women's music performer (the mother's daughter); a little bit of online sex; a sympathetic yet philandering father/husband. Yet it didn't work. The dialogue is so dreary, so heavy, that it reminded me of high school creative writing class. Page 244, in which April finds her way to New York and meets her brother in the airport exemplifies simplistic, sterile storytelling with truly horrendous, flat dialogue. Why can't Leavitt do his somewhat gripping story and genuinely touching plot more good than that? Oy. This novel needs a writer.

Gary Player is one of the fittest, if not the fittest, senior players out there so he certainly has ample authority to speak about staying fit. The tone and level of this book are pretty clearly directed toward the older golfer and with good reason - the people most likely to pick a book off the shelf with Gary on the front and to connect with/relate to him are those in his generation. But there is enough good stuff in here to help the 30-something who has never really stretched before a round and doesn't regularly work out - it's exactly these people who can't quite figure out why they can't break 90 that could also sorely benefit from a kick in the a** from a basic fitness book like this. The stretches, weightlifting and other exercises are fairly basic and most don't require any special equipment or gym membership - good for those I've mentioned above, but probably not new to anybody who works out regularly.

There aren't any secrets to staying fit, and specifically for golf, this book will unlock, but it's a good gift for a high handicapper Dad. I gave it 4 stars b/c for those who need this book (those who have never stretched before a round, and I mean properly for 20 minutes) its a well thought out book that IMHO will likely lower your scores a good deal.

Please! A great idea 25 years ago, but I think the best in-shape player is Mr. Woods, period. This book was like Jack Lalane meets golf, lot's of enthusiasm but not current training.

Not even Tiger has demonstrated the durability and winnability that Player has over his long career.
What distinguishes this fine book is the section which diagnoses one's current physical capabilities for golf, then attunes what to do based on results.
Includes normal exercises, plus stretches, working with heavy clubs, weights, exercise balls, etc.
Also, great warmup advice.

Gary Player is known to be a excercise maniac. In this book he describes his program and illustrates 100 or so individual excercises. I found it almost too general and not specific to excercises designed to improve "golf" skills. Do you really need Gary Player to demonstrate the "push up"?

If one followed Mr. Player's program you would be fit for golf, life or just about anything else.

While you claim to have read it in "old English" in school, you most likely were reading an updated version as well. The original was in MIDDLE ENGLISH not Old English. And looks a little something like this...

Heere bigynneth the knyghtes tale.

Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duc that highte Theseus;
Of Atthenes he was lord and governour,
That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.
Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne,
What with his wysdom and his chivalrie;

Very little like your "old English" of the KJV Bible...

I had no idea that this was not the original text, but a translation from old English to new. I read the old English in high school and didn't have a problem with it, perhaps because I was used to the King James bible. I certainly am not going to read this translation and will put it up for sale. I really enjoyed the original text and prefer to read that.

I want to correct an earlier reviewer.

Chaucer wrote "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English, not Old English. The King James Bible is written in Modern English.

Thanks as always to Dover for publishing this inexpensive and unabridged version (yes, in Modern English) of Chaucer's Tales. Unabridged versions have been hard to find at any price.

This is, on the whole, a very readable introduction to the earliest history of India, though in a few places it is a little dense, while in other places the quotations from Indian texts are perhaps rather too long.

The book begins with an account of the geological formation of the subcontinent, itself a fascinating story, well told. Equally interesting is what we can deduce from archaeology about its earliest, the Indus or Harappan, civilization, from ca.2250 to ca. 1550 BC: its pictographic texts have not yet been deciphered, and little of them survived anyway. The Aryan invasions submerged, without totally drowning, that civilization, and produced that astonishing corpus of the Vedic hymns to their deities, whose transmission, on the insistence of the Brahmins or priestly caste, was entirely oral for nearly a thousand years. During that time the Brahmins were challenged by Jainism and by Buddhism. For Eraly Buddhism is the "gem" in the Hindu lotus, and he gives a good and sympathetic account of what the Buddha taught. Buddhism received an enormous boost when the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (3rd c. BC) espoused and propagated that faith throughout an empire that covered almost the whole of the subcontinent. By that time there were already schisms in Buddhism. Although Ashoka insisted on tolerance towards all the Indian religions, he himself played a significant role in making Theravada Buddhism the orthodox version. At that point Eraly's story ends, and so we do not learn from it anything about the rise of Mahayana Buddhism from the 1st c. BC onwards, or about what caused Buddhism largely to collapse in India and to find new foci in Sri Lanka, Tibet, Burma, China, Indochina, Thailand, Japan and Korea.

Eraly gives quite a detailed account of Alexander the Great's invasion of North-Western India in the 4th c BC. The Hellenic influence on India is not generally well known, and there is also a section in the book devoted to Greek accounts of Indian civilization. The precise narrative about Alexander's campaign in India makes quite a contrast with the vagueness which surrounds dates and details of other important aspects of India's early history. Indeed it was not until 1913 that historians discovered that "the Beloved of the Gods" who had caused so many Buddhist texts to be inscribed on rocks or pillars throughout India was the Emperor Ashoka: until that time he had been merely a name about whom hardly anything was known.

Mr. Abraham Eraly's acidic views on current affairs and the various malaises that India presumably suffers from are well-known. This also makes him noticed in the left-leaning press circles. He has earlier written a book on Mughal period of Indian history. The present volume goes back to beginning of history (Genesis) and covers the period upto Alexander's invasion.

When I picked up this book, I had great expectations. Some of these were met. Mr. Eraly offers a grand vision, and writes on a sweeping canvas. This book has therefore the makings of a good history for the general reader, containing mostly a gist of the current theories of Indian history.

Mr. Early begins the book with an overview of its geological history, talks about the Vedic period, and moves on to the Upanishads. He then moves to Buddhism (the gem in the lotus), and devotes considerable time and effort to it over four chapters. He closes the book with two chapters on the Kautilyan state, and Alexander's invasion.

The book often uses Biblical terms (genesis, savior, prophets), and essentially follows the religious developments in India, from Vedic times to the coming of Buddha. His choice of phrases is sometimes puzzling, often irreverent and inappropriate, and sometimes irrelevant as well. For instance, the composers of epics, and the Vedic seers are called 'Sanskrit writers' (p.9). Vedic seers and sages are mostly addressed as 'poets'. At one stage, he finds that the Vedic poet was `gloating' (p.25). This is of course based on the assumption that the Vedas are a set of historical poems or ballads, rather than being religious or inspired spiritual texts in verse, as most Hindus hold.

Some of his interpretations are misleading: year and rain are denoted by two different words in Sanskrit (varsh and varsha), and not by the same word, varsha. The Aryan invasion theory, and the separation of India into Aryan and Dravidian 'races', continues to influence his writing. According to him, India has essentially been populated by migrations and invasion. At the same time, we are informed that everyone descended from a single African woman (Eve?) who lived about 150,000 years ago, and therefore, language and race are superficial.

His dour nature, and general annoyance with anything Indian, also shows up in the terms and phrases he quotes with approval: for instance, in Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, the 'Big Brother was everywhere'! There was a 'terrible efficiency' about the Indus civilization! The houses in Indus civilization were characterized by 'grey, joyless regimentation, and bleak functionality'! Street doors were 'tucked furtively into side alleys'.

The famous bust of the Indus priest-king, normally characterized as having a serene expression, appears to having an 'air of sullen authority' to Mr. Eraly. At another place, he calls it 'smug, faintly disdainful' expression. The famous dancing girl has an expression which is at once 'saucy and sullen'. Either Mr. Eraly means something else by 'sullen' than what common people understand, or the dancing girl managed to achieve an impossible expression. It is more likely that Mr. Eraly's leftist friends have given him a 'sullen' view of life, which keeps interfering with his work.

The Indus society was 'passive' and 'conservative'. Personal hygiene was a 'fetish'! Standardization of bricks was 'not entirely a good thing' as it stifled innovation and progress! He is also unable to see his own contradictions: though Indus valley was not innovative, and chose to ignore the 'superior techniques' of Sumerians, the civilization nevertheless exported a lot of its production, and had large crafts industries! And of course, Mr. Eraly finds that 'rigor mortis' soon set into the Indus society.
His information is also a little dated. He states (p.21) that at its height the Indus civilization covered an area of 1.3 million square kilometers - actually, this is now known to be 2.5 million square kilometers (1600 km from north to south, and equally from east to west, p.270, Dawn of Indian Civilization, ed. G.C. Pande, PHISPC). The same problem arises with his estimation of the lifespan of the civilization (800 years, 2500-1700 BC, p.21), whereas modern scholars project this as being from 4000 BC to 1400 BC (Pande, pp.275-276).

The paperback edition has very little space in the margins for comments. The text is also close together, and this makes it difficult to underline passages. The paper is of relatively poor quality, and is likely to become yellow rather quickly.

Buy this book if you would like to know how the Left views Indian history.

It must be pointed out that data on Ancient India seems to be rather scarce if compared to other civilizations (such as China , Egypt or Summer). I had tried a couple of times to find a book on India, informative and easy to read, and I had failed. Abraham Eraly's Gem in the Lotus happens to be the book, able to expose available knowledge without making you fall asleep. So I daresay that this is a book that can be savoured by the professional historian and educated layperson alike.

Stephen Pyne is a difficult writer, but the depth and meticulous nature of his intelligence pulls you back to him even though you tell yourself to lighten up and read a good mystery. Three cheers to university presses (U of Iowa and U of Washington) for putting and keeping this book in print. The Ice touches on everything about Antarctica: the history, the landscape, the literature, the geology, the biology. The book is all-encompassing--as is The Ice that is its focus and deep passion. It's worth the effort, and your vocabulary will never be the same afterwards. You can read a mystery later.

Like the previous reviewer, I too quailed at the start of this book. Immediately I was plunged to half page paragraphs and dense terms, swimming between excessive description and dense science. But, I'm a geologist. I've been to Antarctica. I knew I could do it...

I suspect that this book will remain unsurpassed for being an all encompassing tome on Antarctica for decades, possibly even centuries ... maybe even until we emerege from this interglacial period and the Western Ice sheet melts, thus giving up the secrets to climate control and Antarctica. I can't imagine much has been left out at all - Pyne is unbelievably, incredibly thorough. Every facet of the ice, and every facet he could think to associate with ice has been methodically slotted into this book. And if he ran out of talking about anything to do with the ice, he'd talk about Antarctica.

But this book is very, very, very, VERY heavy going. I set myself a goal of 25 pages/night - but it still took 2 months to read... Sometimes, I just had to take a break. And as I ploughed ever onwards, I constantly wondered, 'how would someone be able to read this if they hadn't actually been to Antactica???' And other times, I even qualified that with a "would anyone really understand this if they weren't a geologist or in a similar field?' I mean, Pyne can be descriptive, but at other times, adjectives seem to be insufficient, so he swoops into heavy scientific jargon.

I also missed having some diagrams. A few 'colour' photos even... (Ok, colour is a bit misleading - its all white, blue and grey down there...). Antarctica is so stark and sparse, that sometimes, it is just better to look at a photograph of the deep glacier blue of ice (well, actually, WHY ice is blue was something Pyne overlooked in this book, now I think of it! Rainbows and bubbles people...), or a vast plain of continental ice, or the weird solar and weather patterns that can pervade above the ice...

If you can't make it down to Antarctica, but want to become an authority on it, then you can go no further than this book. If wading through the heaviest and densest book written in a long time is something you will need to build up to, the maybe start with something like, Antarctica: The Blue Continent, and see if you want to progress from there - at least then you will have some pictures in mind of what to expect when Pyne melts into deep prose...

The planning to buy this book was detailed and meticulous. Consultations had to be held with interested parties (my sons) and the wait for it to arrive was lengthy - at least ten days.
It was with a sense of mounting excitement that we eagerly surveyed the flat white cover of the package, I could sense our goal. I knew it wasn't going to be easy traversing 428 pages of a book titled "The Ice" but I had completed intensive practical training for this expedition. I was a veteran of Huntsford's "Schackleton", Huxley's "Scott of the Antarctic", Fuchs & Hillary's "The Crossing of Antarctica", the list was long but rewarding. Here was my biggest challenge to date.
The warnings were stark right from the start, the prologue uses half a page to list 72 ways to name ice. I stumbled and nearly gave up. Willpower, only willpower kept me going. I was becoming word blind. Reaching my first goal, the middle, I could only contemplate with horror the trials still awaiting me. "Great God, this is an awful book", I thought as I turned the next page. I wondered if I had the stamina to make it, others before me must have faltered. My son looked at me, "I'm just going out, I may be some time". I could only admire his courage, at having come so far. I ploughed on, yet another reference to Admiral Byrd appeared on the horizon. Until now I had been unaware of his supreme importance as an American and Antarctic explorer. Similarly I had been foolishly unaware of the fact that "...there is nothing in the Heroic age to compare with Ellsworth's all-or-nothing transcontinental flight, even Schackleton turned back..." The fact that Ellsworth achieved precisely nothing is of no importance, he was an American.
Things were looking bleak, stamina was draining fast. A crevasse nearly finished me as I learned that TMW Turner (English) had painted sunsets. I began to lose hope, I was hallucinating, could he really mean JMW Turner who painted ships too, and trains ? It was my darkest hour, all hope was gone. I closed the book.
This is a book for the fanatical written by someone who equates flowery, overblown prose with literature, it is so bad it is almost a parody. If you want to read about the modern Antarctic, read Sara Wheeler's polar classic "Terra Incognita". The best place for Pyne's tome is on an iceberg, drifting slowly out of sight towards the equator.