Nicholson Books

Quinnell's books rarely disappoint in the action thriller genre. However, with this one, he seems to have lost interest in the story with 40 pages to go. The denouement is over much too quickly.

That said, the rest of the book is vintage Quinnell. He has written far better books (The Mahdi is excellent, Man On Fire and The Perfect Kill are very good), but he does the 'tough guy out to take out the bad guys by whatever means necessary' as well as anyone.

If you plan to read The Blue Ring, be sure to read Man on Fire and The Perfect Kill first. The adopted son who plays such a predominant role in this book will make no sense if you have not at least read The Perfect Kill first.

This novel is not for the faint of heart.
A ring of kidnappers has been snatching ladies and girls in Europe, then proceeding to get them hooked on herion and force them to prostitute themselves to maintain their dirty habit. Luckily ex-mercenary's Creasy and his adopted 19 year old son have a vested interest in destroying "The Blue Ring".
The writing in this novel is relatively crisp and clean, perhaps counterpoint to the main plot line. Some of the passages Quinnell pens are indeed very unsettling and disturbing in his description which is almost too realistic. One almost HAS to wonder just how many papers he pulled his plot from, yet paradoxically there are parts where the reader must suspend their disbelief in order for the story on the whole to work.
I enjoyed this book even though it almost gave me nightmares as Quinell redefined what and who evil is in this world.

Neil Belton takes on the tricky business of revealing an obscure and brilliant intellect, deliberately removed and enigmatic, at a time when Europe is convulsed by the Second World War, perhaps the most brutal and morally defined catastrophe in the history of civilisation. Some readers will be disappointed that little action of the white or black knight variety, or exported cliches of the kind that make Irish pubs the toast of the world, can be found in 'A Game with Sharpened Knives.' But this was never Belton's intention. Instead, hived off from the guns and bombs, Ernest Schrodinger, author of the most famous cat since the Sphinx, flees Nazi Germany and takes sanctuary in neutral Dublin, where the President of the Irish Republic, de Valera, has created an asylum for leading scientists. What could be cosier? But as Schrodinger combines a domestic menage a trois with the receptive tabla rasa of theoretical physics, he is stalked by an agent of his former homeland. Belton plays on the stultifying purgatory of a quasi neutral country (de Valera says divided Ireland is neither alive nor dead) to bring Shrodinger's cat home to haunt him, so that from one moment to the next, through the fog and the black out, we never forget the rumbling confusion, the sheer anxiety of ideas, that led to the war in the first place.

I'm sorry, I just couldn't stay awake reading this thing. It was confusing, boring, and annoying. I had high hopes when picking it up: I like historical fiction, I like reading about science and scientists, and I've generally found Irish writers (at least those available in the US) to be to my liking.

Skip this one.

One of the most difficult tasks for any decent writer trying to write a biograpy of a prominent Nazi leader is to beable to garner sufficient emphaty with his/her subject, to enable us get a deeper understanding of the person in question's inner life, deeper motivations etc. John Weitz does not seem to have set such a task for himself in this biography; he is content to remain within the bounds of a civilized horror at the Nazi phenomenon. Nevertheless, his thorough scholarship, enables us to get a glimpse of the psyche of Ribbentrop as in the quote ot the effect that killing Hitler would have been like killing his (Ribbentrops's) father. It is a pity. It is well known that Nazism was sufffused with a fascination with power and leader. Ribbentrop during his career was caught under the spelll of not one but two such charismatic tyrants, Hitler but also Stalin. Despite the merits of the book, I thnik we stilll need a more psychologically-minded and nuanced biography of Hitler's Diplomat.

One of the most difficult tasks for any decent writer trying to write a biograpy of a prominent Nazi leader is to beable to garner sufficient emphaty with his/her subject, to enable us get a deeper understanding of the person in question's inner life, deeper motivations etc. John Weitz does not seem to have set such a task for himself in this biography; he is content to remain within the bounds of a civilized horror at the Nazi phenomenon. Nevertheless, his thorough scholarship, enables us to get a glimpse of the psyche of Ribbentrop as in the quote ot the effect that killing Hitler would have been like killing his (Ribbentrops's) father. It is a pity. It is well known that Nazism was sufffused with a fascination with power and leader. Ribbentrop during his career was caught under the spelll of not one but two such charismatic tyrants, Hitler but also Stalin. Despite the merits of the book, I thnik we stilll need a more psychologically-minded and nuanced biography of Hitler's Diplomat.

I think the above review needs a corrective. Tynan was the sharpest, funniest, and best-informed theatre critic of his generation. He was also a wonderful stylist, and a precocious one: many writers never write as well as Tynan did while still in his teens. These letters can be enjoyed simply for their manipulation of language, but there's more to them than that. Tynan always liked to think of himself as an outsider, as someone pushing the envelope; yet he also was entranced by the establishment at play, and he enjoyed lowbrow entertainment almost as much as Shakespeare and Sophocles. These letters demonstrate this bifurcation of character, making for a sort of un-selfconscious autobiography. Well worth buying for anyone who likes reading letters, and a must for Tynan fans. when can we have some more of his work reisssued?

How did this collection of letters make it to print...when there are scores of personalities whose letters I'd love to read in a collection that haven't? These letters are very boring and he did not write to many notable people (a few to McCartney, Lennon and Olivier). Before you read about a theater critic, read what William Goldman said in his legendary book about Broadway THE SEASON, in the chapter titled "The Approvers." That tells you all about theater critics you need to know. THEN you can decide whether to read this one of Tynan's letters. I don't think this book would have made it to print if Tynan's wife hadn't been shoving it down publisher's and editor's throats. Dull, dull, dull, except for about five of the letters.

This is a great book to have. The pictures are great and really capture London in its true glory. For anyone who has been to London this book is a must have and will be so full of memories. Everytime I turned a page in the book more memories came back. I have it on my coffee table and show it everyone. They all love the London as I saw it.

Trying too hard to be unusual.

The photos are often of grotesque subjects (lots of gargoyles); taken from weird locations or at strange angles or too close up (never show the whole building); lots of telephoto-distorted perspective; almost all overcast weather. Overall, very unattractive, distant, and cold.

Text tends to focus on less-salubrious aspects of the city's history.

A commercial street map that doesn't show all of the city covered by the book is reproduced on the last two pages. No index to the map or cross-references between map and book.

This is a book that was "produced" -- not a labor of love.

By the way, I really like the photographer's book on English villages -- it is just the opposite.

This is a poor biography because Trevor Royle has written a
work about a controversal subject that goes out of its way
to avoid offending anyone.

Its impossible to write a useful biography of Wingate that
doesn't address any of the controversies about him that
persist to this day. In avoiding taking a stand on the
controversies, the book gives offense to none but at the
same time paints a dishonest portrait of the man.

Royle also appears to have gone out of his way to avoid
dealing with many of the stupid things that Wingate thought
and said before and during the war.

What Wingate's followers have never quite understood is that
Wingate himself insulted and attacked almost everyone around
him in the army during his career. Its impossible to expect
his critics to be polite or deferential to a man who neither
during his lifetime.

And with regard to his Israeli supporters, your patrotism
is all fine and well. But the world outside the superheated
political nationalism of Israel doesn't have to obey your
rules of political correctness as regards history.

The worst single thing Royle does is turn Wingate's breakdown
and suicide attempt during the war into some sort great heroic
turning point in a life. Rather than another sign of a very
troubled man who could not follow orders, accept authority
or even accept responsiblity for his own actions.

Of the dozens of books that relate to Orde Wingate, the majority deal primarily with either the Chindit operations into Burma or serve as answers to the character assassination that was done posthumously after Wingate's death in a plane crash in 1944. Of the remainder, this book, along with the authorized bio by Christopher Sykes, and the most recent one by John Bierman & Colin Smith, stand out as the most complete. Of these, the Sykes version is the earliest, from 1959 and the author did not have access to certain records that the latter did. The Bierman and Smith version is quite thorough, but ends with some editorializing commentary on the current state of affairs in the Middle East totally contrary to those views that Wingate himself held. For this reason it leaves a sour taste in one's mouth. Royle's book suffers none of these flaws, and is perhaps the easiest read of them all. It is an excellent introduction to the life and thoughts of a man whom it will be revealed in time, was in fact a man of destiny, as Churchill's epitaph for him stated he was likely to become.

Hauser and Briggs' history traces the development of English culture from prehistoric times to the present. They draw insightful connections between trends and events, and supplement the written history with a wealth of illustrations that, rather than merely illuminating the text, form an integral part of the understanding of the way all things English have emerged into the present.

Briggs' history traces the development of English culture from prehistoric times to the present. He draws insightful connections between trends and events, and supplements his written history with a wealth of illustrations that, rather than merely illuminating the text, form an integral part of the understanding of the way all things English have emerged into the present.

The Amber Trail is a travel log about a bicycle trip along the route of the Amber Trail which ran from the Baltic to Greece which began operation as early as 3000 BC-unfortunately except for a few introductory paragraphs, the book contains little information about amber or the amber trade, and the author failed to any real remnants of the amber trade or trail. As a snapshot of the times, in the Balkan countries, the book is intersting.

This book is mostly a collection of previously published material either from Games Workshop's out of print supplements or White Dwarf magazine. If you have both the Restless Dead and Warhammer Companion supplements, you will probably find that most of material here is lifted from the two books. For the new converts to the game, the contents are interesting and the varied mix of articles (from new rules to short adventures) would make it useful to any player or GM.

I loved Robert Twiggers' other books, but this one was a little weak. He seems to try to create a theory of manhood that is essentially that real men continue the life they learned on the playground. At one point, he discusses the interest he and his friends had as children in the derring-do of sailors, which I guess is his way of saying that little boys know more about being men than "safe" older men. However, he can't seem to distinguish this sense of risk from the adolescent tricksterism of skate-boards and dirt bikes. At other times, he seems to be describing some sort of Euro-dismal mid-life crisis, and his dislike of strutting men in the gym locker-room comes across as insecurity about his physique and "physique" rather than real criticism of modern views of men's bodies. My impression is that Twigger has a clear sense that the modern world is in total antipathy to masculinity (and it is) but that he has bought into too many of the theories and habits that underlie the emasculation to understand where the problem lies.