Nicholson Books

This new book by J.C. far exceeded my expectations. After reading Something Wicked Came Undone I expected this book to follow in the same "spooky" genre. What a SURPRISE and an unexpected one at that. J.C. proves in this book that she is able to write dynamically in multiple genres. This new book follows the story of Liberty Blair who is so totally wrapped in her own non-life that somewhere on the way has lost herself and her daughter (Kirsten). Can she ever get them both back? Along the way she meets several intriguing characters but it is Detective John Hatchet who helps open Liberty's eyes to the "real" world. A world that is filled with love, hate, deceit and betrayal. This edgy tale sends Liberty on several jaunts to Las Vegas and thrusts her unbeknownst hero into the middle of a drug cartels dangerous nest. This is a very fast-paced book that I could not put down until the very last word. With a wider mass-audience appeal, The Bastard's Mother could be the book that brings J.C. into the literary mainstream. Keep them coming J.C.!

This story kept me on the edge of my seat. I love supernatural Stephen King type genre and this writer is very similar. Easy read and very suspensful, you will be guessing up till the end.

Bloody April is about the air war over Arras in 1917: the
British lost large numbers of aircraft to the Germans, and
the life expectancy of a rookie pilot could be measured in
days. Yet, paradoxically, the British won the battle that
month. Bloody April goes into depth on the characteristics
of the aircraft, the training, the prelude to April and the
aftermath: there are innumerable quotes from diaries,
letters home, and other accounts that help show the attitudes
and the stress.

The romantic view of the war in the air in W.W. I is usually
that of single-seat fighters in combat with each other. The
reality is that for the RFC in the Arras sector, only a third
of the aircraft were single-seaters: the rest were all two-
seaters, although some of these had to be employed as fighters
at times. The primary mission of the RFC was to help with
photo reconnaissance (thousands of photographs had to be taken
each day) and artillery spotting (using wireless transmitters
to help artillery zero in on targets). The primary role of the
fighters was to escort the photo recon and artillery spotting
aircraft and to screen them by offensive patrols. Trench-
strafing, anti-balloon attacks, and bombing were of secondary
importance, as was the need to prevent photo recon and artillery
spotting by the Germans.

The German fighters were far superior to almost all of the
British two-seaters, and were superior to most of the British
fighters, but the Germans had only half as many aircraft in
the sector as the British, and so they usually played a
defensive role. The British accepted very heavy losses in
exchange for getting the photographs and the artillery
spotting done. There are quotes about how a squadron with
32 planes lost 35 pilots during April--replacement pilots
would survive only a few days. Flying a BE2 with only 10 hours'
flying experience against veteran German pilots whose planes
were twice as fast and had twice the firepower was not
conducive to lasting very long.

Bloody April never gets bogged down in small details--it gives
a first-class flavor to what things were really like, and it
helps dispell the romantic myths. It's a fine book.

addendum: august, 2007. Aces Falling by Peter Hart (available Amazon UK
august, USA October?) carries the air war through 1918--it's a good sequel
to Bloody April.

This book describes the terrible loss rate of the RFC two-seater aircrews during the month of April 1917, a period known as "Bloody April". The stage is set by introducing the reasons why these casualties were accepted as a necessary consequence of the requirements of the ground war on the Western Front. Considerable use is made of first person accounts by various two-seater aircrew personnel, most of whom have seldom if ever had their thoughts and fears depicted in such a graphic manner. These first person accounts give the book a personal air which came as quite a surprise, and which makes the book a remarkably easy read. Throughout, the book shows signs of considerable reaearch of high quality.
I will confess that I bought this book primarily because the price was right, and my expectations were quite modest. Having read the book, I can now say that this should be required reading for any serious student of the Great War in the air. It makes the suffering of the RFC Corps aircraft flight crews come alive in a way that few other references have matched.

I loved it the first time but may be enjoying it even more the second--possibly because in the interim I have read Beerbohm (Zuleika Dobson in particular; the existence of which this book made me aware), Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, and others. (In some ways this group literary biography tops Powell's work - by the end of Time, I felt a bit worn out by the multitude of characters who appeared so briefly, whereas here I feel like I get a bead on even the most minor "characters." Very much feel like I'm in the company of someone who knows his stuff--knows the best stories--has an eye for great detail and great anecdote, and an empathy (balanced by humor, or vice versa) for his subjects. And he's sitting there in a study with a ton of personal letters and memoirs and diaries spread out on the table, pointing out the best bits. Excellent writer, too. And no, I am no relation....

This is an admirable book, well written, balanced and well researched. After a slightly hesitant start, the scene shifts to Oxford in the early twenties; it comes across as a very dissolute place, with distinct homosexual undertones. The noticeable "public school" backdrop leaves you wondering why anyone should send their child to an English boarding school (at very great expense, incidentally). But they did, and still do. However, at Oxford we are introduced to a veritable galaxy of talent, including Evelyn Waugh, the lead character in the book, Graham Greene, John Betjeman, Osbert Lancaster, Anthony Powell and others. There are some very amusing quotes and anecdotes.

But the book becomes increasingly serious, and whilst not specifically a work of literary criticism, it cites reviews and gives the background to the works of Waugh and to a lesser extent others. It also looks at the curious world of the Roman Catholic convert. At the end I felt a little sad for Waugh and some of his contemporaries. In spite of their achievements, by no means all of them seemed happy.

This book divides close to 5 thousand years of history into sections in order to be able to present it in an understandable manner. It starts with a general overview to give historical perspective, then moves onto the roles of the Emperor and his Mandarins, the philosophical and religious experience and then the economic and cultural achievements of the Chinese.

While there are many generalisations - given the number of different cultures in China this in unavoidable - you still get a rich and very interesting overview of one of the great continuous cultures of the planet. You will come away from this book with a better understanding of the sources of the strong family attachments, the rise and fall of dynasties and cultural chaos and superstition that rule much of Chinese culture even today.

One thing that struck me after reading this book is how frequently history repeats itself - even today - If you want to have a better understanding of Chinese history and culture, this book should be on your reading list - The lessons of Chinese culture and history are relevant for everyone, not just history lovers.

This book is an extremely well-written overview of the major distinctives of Chinese culture throughout the centuries. I didn't realize until I read this book why so many other Chinese history/culture books have not resonated well with me. It's because all the others have tried to tell the Chinese story linearly and chronologically, which is a good way of approaching Western Civilization (The Greek period, the Roman period, the Dark Ages, the Medieval Ages, the Rennaisance, etc) but not at ALL the way to look at Chinese history, where so many ideas have remained timeless from dynasty to dynasty, and progress is not measured from one epoch to the next. This book takes a more "horizontal" approach and zeroes in on various aspects of the culture, illuminating the Chinese presuppositions and where they differ from those of the Western mind. It's lucid, entertaining, and fascinating, neither insulting nor presumptious about what the reader knows.

Peter Parsons, Regius Chair of Greek at Oxford emeritus, has been an enthusiastic papyrologist since graduate school in the 1950s. This unlikely book is his popular presentation of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, thousands of mostly Greek fragments discovered in the dump of Oxyrhynchus, the "City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish," a now-leveled ancient town about hundred miles south of Cairo.

After an introduction to the discovery, excavation, and interpretation of the papyri, and a chapter devoted to Greeks in ancient Egypt, Parsons provides an outline of city life and describes the place of the emperor and the Romans in city affairs. Most of the book, however, cleverly treats mundane matters, the records of which ended up in the city's landfill and were preserved (sometimes thirty feet deep) by the dry Egyptian climate: business contracts, legal paperwork, sympathy notes, handwriting exercises, magic spells. From these scraps, Parsons ventures shrewd guesses about medicine, religion, education, family relationships and the operation of bureaucracies.

My own favorite chapter discusses the annual inundation of the Nile, which annually deposited new soil on the fields and was the basis for Egypt's reputation as the breadbasket of the ancient world. Parsons notes that while most ancient economies had two seasons, sowing and harvest, Egypt had a third, the season of inundation. This geographical bounty provided idiosyncratic records about dike building, grain shipment, tax levies, and even worship of the river.

Parsons is a fine writer, and he makes good use of his considerable learning, not only in deciphering and translating the documents but also in his ability to synthesize their contents for the general reader--even though he can only rarely pull individuals from the detritus of centuries. Nevertheless, Parsons might have better pointed the differences between the people of Oxythynchus and ourselves. As Mary Beard noted in her review for TLS, the people of Oxyrhynchus "had coughs and colds, sore feet and blistered hands just as we do" but otherwise "lived in a world so different from ours as to call into question that superficial familiarity." After all, how can moderns understand a city that probably had no latrines or a citizenry that worshiped a fish. (The book provides a fine illustration of a figurine showing a worshiper kneeling before a giant effigy of the city's eponymous fish--with a nose better termed "droopy" than "sharp.") This book is well worth reading by anyone interested in the ancient world, but Oxyrhynchus was indeed a strange place, probably more foreign to the modern West than the most exotic spot in the world today.

The idea of archeology in Egypt brings with it associations of pyramids, hidden passages, mummies, and gold statues. The ancient city of Oxyrhynchos didn't have any such claims. All it had was its garbage dumps, and instead of Indiana Jones, it had two young Oxford dons to dig around in it in 1896. They did not find treasure as might be displayed under spotlights in museum cases, but treasure it was, nonetheless. It was a vast quantity of papyrus documents from the first to fourth centuries, preserved in Egypt's dry heat, and still legible. In _City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt_ (Weidenfeld and Nicolson), Peter Parsons has revealed some of what the papyri have to tell us. He is fully qualified for such a work; he is a professor of Greek and a lecturer in Papyrology at Oxford, as well as the former head of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project. He says that when you open a box of unpublished papyri, "you never know what you will find - high poetry and vulgar farce, sales and loans, wills and contracts, tax returns and government orders, private letters, shopping lists and household accounts." It is quite a jumble, but his book has organized the findings by thematic chapters, and so provides a remarkable portrait of everyday life in a culture that turns out to be both alien and familiar.

Accidental finds of papyrus a hundred miles south of Cairo and ten miles west of the Nile led to archeological interest in England. The two young Oxford archeologists, Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt, could not have known what they were getting into when they began their exploration, but they quickly learned that there were heaps of papyri to be unearthed. An excited Grenfell wrote, "The papyri were, as a rule, not very far from the surface. In one patch of ground, indeed, merely turning up the soil with one's boot would frequently disclose a layer of papyri." Volume I of the scholarly _The Oxyrhynchus Papyri_ was published in 1898, and six generations of scholars have been going through the finds ever since. Volume LXXII is due out only this year, and there will be forty more volumes of Hunt and Grenfell's findings still to come. So in many ways our understanding of these finds is fragmentary. Not only have only some of the papyri been examined and translated, but they are writings that the Oxyrhynchites threw away. All the work represented in Parsons's book is an academic study of rubbish. The writings are usually not elevated, but deal with daily life, like food. When there were celebrations, like the Festival of the Nile, the crowds wanted sweet foods like fritters and flat-cakes with honey. Street vendors distributed their version of fast food, which was a gruel or porridge, but just as now, fast food was thought to be sustenance for the lazy: "You should not be chomping porridge on my signature," grumped one correspondent. There were contracts for work, and contracts for apprenticeships, complete with stipulations about holidays. But it wasn't all business. A wife wrote to her husband, "I do not see the sun, because you are not seen by me: for I have no sun but you." When a father left for Alexandria without his son, the boy wrote, "If you don't send for me, I won't eat, I won't drink, so there." There are examples of pedagogy; "Work hard, boy, or be skinned" was written out multiple times by a boy who was writing lines for punishment. The archeologists were hunting for religious texts, and they found them, but not all were consistent with Victorian orthodoxy. A written blessing to secure a house from vermin ("every evil crawler and thing") invokes Egyptian, Babylonian, Jewish, and Christian deities or saints; fifteen hundred years later, words from the Koran were used for the same purpose.

So there is plenty of indication that the more things change, the more they remain the same. It isn't a new lesson, but it is here imparted in an unusual way. Parsons writes, "Oxyrhynchos exists again today as a waste-paper city, a virtual landscape which we can populate with living and speaking people." His book is a fascinating collection of samples from a huge and continuing academic endeavor.

Whoever said that the British lacked culinary talents was sadly mistaken. There are 1198 pages full of detailed instruction on food preparation, food storage, the proper selection and use of kitchen equipment and appliances as well as housekeeping tips. This British text is as valuable to cooks as is the Joy of Cooking and LaRousse's Gastrominique.

I'm told this was "The" classic cooking text in Great Britain and some of the USA in the 1950's and 60's. Sadly there was no US reprint that I can locate for many years...I've got a 1956 dogeared and loved edition...

Reading it's instructions, advice and recipes today is far more instructive, and far better written, than say the better and older editions of Joy of Cooking in it's depth and breadth, and far more educational than that of other general cookbooks, or even Gourmet's irritatingly pale yellow tome which has left out many classic recipes...

And does it have depth! It has 47 pages on eggs alone in it's 1200 odd pages, with combinations of all sorts of treats to make your mouth water to read...40 pages on sauces, with advice to attain presentations worthy of "Art Culinaire" magazine! The warmth of root vegetables in enhanced by specific sauces and the blanching of some such as celeriac for whitening, advice on picking small rather than large beetroots for better texture and flavor, it suggests removing the tasteless fibrous core of large older carrots. There are ways to cook onions till tender, remove the heart, chop it with mushrooms, seasonings and salt, fry, then replace in the center of the onion...ah, the hints go on and on! Even how to properly dry excess moisture from hot mashed potatoes, before adding butter and milk to give them lightness and lluscious body...far more luscious tasting than when they are left moist before adding the butter and milk...and there's 14 enticing recipes for mashed potatoes!

There's generous advice on what to make for picnics, serving wines with different foods, many suggestions for a first course in a more formal meal. Advice is given freely on removing various stains before they set, and proper ways to wash and dry knives..so much to learn!

There are 140 delightful pages on making baked goods from donuts to gateau lyonnaise, celestins, and secrets for all sorts of French, German and other pastries...

It's as if a fine (French oriented) chef was looking over your shoulder, mentoring, and giving hints that just do not appear in most recipe books! A superb chef I learn from says these are the hints given from chef to apprentice, and concurs they are never in books, as they express the art of cooking that few recipe writers have learned, and thus can not put in a recipe's guide. Wonder why recipes for home made meals lack some "secret ingredient" the restaurant chef must posess...read this and learn the "secret" steps!

Judy Rodgers in Zuni Cafe comes close in her attention to detail in some of her recipes for "do-able" dishes, Thomas Keller of course is superb in thoroughly describing his day long preparations often requiring two cooks often to split the work, however the audiences for Spry's, and for Keller's tomes are quite different.

Read this great (and far more thorough than) general cookbook, select and start reading at any page, and savor learning the art of cooking, as taught in an unbroken chain from executive chef to apprentice/budding chef, and down the distinguished line, to fine line cooks and some home cooks, and thence to your palate!

Let yourself be drawn to try a recipe or two, and in your own home, become the happy apprentice of a master chef!

This book has more than 100 really good photos. If you like Damon you will love it.

Damon writes a review of the 1996 season with Williams Renault and his subsiquent championship victory. He allows the reader to visit areas that one can't gain from TV coverage and as it's and "official" Damon Hill publication there are many non-gp moments covered too. I hope this can become an annual event.

Everyone needs a little excitement in their lives, but Kate Carpenter seems to get more than her share. Deborah Nicholson's second novel in the Kate Carpenter Mystery Series, Evening the Score, weaves a tangled web of love, hate, deceit and murder.
When the concert hall at the Calgary Arts Complex floods, a world piano competition is moved into Kate's theatre. She can manage that all right, but can she manage the unexpected appearance of a world-famous conductor and former lover with his wife and child in tow? What does she say to Cam when he catches them in a compromising position? Is she still in love with Stephan?
Evening the Score will keep you on the edge of your seat and may even leave you hanging from the second balcony. I read my advance copy in one sitting and am now anxiously awaiting book three.
My recommendation? Don't miss Evening the Score.

Kate Carpenter can't seem to stay out of trouble as we are taken into the second book of this outstanding mystery series. It was a good feeling to already be familiar with Kate, her boyfriend Cam, her assistant Graham and the delightful police detective Ken, whose main job seems to be protecting Kate from being murdered.

Kate and Cam have just returned from a well deserved vacation after finding a body in the theater and solving the murder. However, their bliss would be short lived as a long lost love from Kate's past will suddenly reappear in Kate's life. As fate would have it, a flood at the Calgary Arts Complex causes the world piano competition to be moved into Kate's theater, and with it comes Kate's long ago lover, his wife, his daughter and another adventure.

Yes, we have another murder and this time it becomes quite personal for Kate, and more dangerous then she ever thought possible. Ah! The plot thickens.

I was very impressed with the twists and turns that the author weaved into this mystery. I really thought I had this figured out and was actually shocked at the ending being totally fooled at who the killer was; now that is a good mystery book.
I loved the way the author ended the work with a knock at the door and then not telling you who was there, but allowing you to know they shocked Cam, whoever it was. That was just plain unfair, now I have to know! Who was it? And what mystery is this going to lead into?

"Evening The Score" is a great work, one full of twist, turns, mystery, love, adventure and even some humor. Don't miss this one readers. Recommended highly.
Shirley Johnson
Senior Reviewer
MidWest Book Review

Its been a while since I've read it, but I just had to review it because it was so unlike just about anything I've ever read. It was so original - such a breath of fresh air! Everything kind of transpired like a bizarre dream, and it was quite suspenseful. You couldn't help but like and sometimes pity the main character. It was interesting how he actually lived in the shopping centre, yet distanced himself from the obsession with consuming. I love a book with intriguing characters, and this one had plenty of them. It was basically cool.

One of Nicholson's best books (second only--maybe--to Bleeding London), Everything and More is also one of his most accessible. If you've read Hunters and Gatherers, The Food Chain, or any of his other novels, you know that he's a pretty tough author to categorize. His books--while focusing on eccentric, offbeat characters and situations you rarely (if you're lucky) encounter in real life--manage to convey a universal sense of what it means to be obsessed with...well, anything. If you haven't read any of Geoff Nicholson's books before, this is a great place to start.

My favorite aspects of the book Fundi the Snail are threefold. 1 - When it referred to the snail moving "hurriedly" because it made me laugh at the thought processes and efforts that are a snail's - and how like they are to us as humans - often rushing from point A to point B, and yet not really moving very fast at all if you are watching us from an airplane. 2 - I liked the poetic tone of the story, such as the use of the word "twilight" one of my favorite terms in describing the brink of the evening - such terms are used often in the book, giving kids credit, and a rich vocabulary - not talking down to them as so many children's books do. 3 - As I listened to the story, I thought of how we can relate to the plight of this little life of Fundi's - his pursuits, his passions, his fears, his dreams, and how reading about his journey gives us a perspective on the important roles we have in this world, and within our own families - and how much more there is out there to know and do. I love this story and am going to share it with all my friends who too enjoy a book where the authors and artists put thought and care into every centimeter of every page, down to the blushing on the cheeks of Fundi's sweetheart. This story would charm anyone with ears to hear - definitely in that category of books such as St. Exupery's "A Little Prince" both books can be endearing and entertaining to the very young, but are full of thoughtful concepts that would inspire anyone at any age. Thank you authors and artist for letting us experience the world of Fundi in our own homes!

Fundi is brilliant. The authors have an enormous talent for storytelling and the illustrations are so creative. What a great team of writers.
Since so much of children's' media is done with computer animation these days, it is so refreshing to be entertained by the painted artwork of Devon Nicholson.
I highly recommend this book if you want to read a remarkably bright story.