P Books

I picked up this book about two years ago and I am still cross-stitching its patterns! It is simply the best cross-stitch book ever and it doubles as a children's book too!

As a twenty-something crafter, it is often difficult for me to find cross-stitch books that are more modern and suit my tastes (I'm not a big fan of teddy bears and old samplers). I bought this book because my mother used to read Mother Goose to me when I was young, and I have been happily surprised! These aren't necessary geared toward the young adult stitchers, but the color usage and reminiscence of the patterns keep me coming back time and again. There are a few easy patterns, but most of them are fairly challanging to the intermediate stitcher, which is a plus. I definitely enjoy this book and am glad I added it to my collection while it was still available!

If you're looking for a cross-stitch book that has everything including cute patterns, this is the one you're looking for. You can't ask for a better cross-stitch book than this one. The colors and the designs are so refreshing and very good. I myself have done three of the patterns in the book now. If you are truly a cross stitch enthusiast, this book's for you!

The most beautiful cross stitch patterns for childrens bedroomart that I have ever seen... END

This is one of my all-time favorite books of cross-stitch charts!

Interestingly, I first saw the book "Mother Goose's Words of Wit and Wisdom" in an elementary school library. I loved the bright colors and great illustrations. But it took me a while to realize that *all* the illustrations in the book were counted cross-stitch designs! Once I realized that, I wondered if there were charts available of these illustrations. After a bit of searching, I discovered that indeed this second book was available - a book of charts!

The front of this book looks like the original, with the rhymes and illustrations. At the back of the book you'll find the corresponding charts. They are full-size graphs, black print on a blue grid with a color key for DMC floss.

Also included is a nice little explanation about Mother Goose and the Sampler, as well as a short section called Cross-stitch Essentials that gives a short tutorial on cross-stitch techniques.

This book is a real keeper!

Until America The Book came out, this was probably the funniest book I ever read.

This book is absolutely brilliant and hilarious; I was absolutely crushed to find out that it was out of print.

I wish I had kept my copy. Is still remember stuff that was absolutely hilarious. "They were eaten by a bear", and the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" build-it-yourself book was a scream. It's like PDQ Bach - the more you know, the funnier it is.

I still have my "Science Made Stupid", but I can't find my "Cvltvre" anywhere! "Science" is pretty funny, but "Cvltvre" wins by a nose. I still chuckle over the chapter about the history of non-Western society that goes something like this: "The cultures of Asia and Africa were very interesting and vitally important to understanding today's society. But that's all we'll say about them for the rest of this book." That's *exactly* how non-Greek ancient cultures are presented in every textbook I've ever read!
And who can forget "Beowulf vs. Godsylla", the Anglo-Saxon epic poem we all read in 10th grade.
Houghton-Mifflin! Reprint this classic satire!

Why on earth is this book out of print? Why wasn't it a huge bestseller? It was and remains one of the funniest books I have ever read, worth rereading over and over again to get the bits you missed before

This is one of the five volumes that any Lovecraft fan MUST have in his or her collection.

The Library of America's Lovecraft collection contains all of the classic tales of Lovecraft's maturity. S. T. Joshi's exhaustive and elegant bio tells all you need to know and more about the man and his world. One of the volumes of Lovecraft's collaborations and revisions (i.e. THE LOVED DEAD AND OTHER REVISIONS) brings together that little-known but fascinating aspect of Lovecraft's career. And TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS brings together the best of the multi-faceted tales inspired by Lovecraft's creativity.

This volume is surely unsurpassed as a collection of Lovecraft's earlier tales--both his conventional "fright tales" and his apprentice "weird tales"--many of which appear to be influenced by one of Lovecraft's idols, Lord Dunsany.

And it includes his classic (and seminal) essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature." Nobody interested in Lovecraft or in weird fiction in general can afford not to have this essay in his or her library.

May this anthology always remain in print.

I highly recommend everything Lovecraft wrote. Few people are ever blessed with the talent for writing about the macabre and the fantastic. Lovecraft was the greatest. He explored the deepest secrets beneath and went to realms unfathomable. There will only be one H.P. Lovecraft and he should be acknowledged world-wide for his accomplishments. This book is one of three hardcovers that contain most, if not all, of his work. Turn out the lights and spark a flame while reading this one. Explore the unknown and dare places feared by man...

This collection of work ranks as my second favorite, falling just short of "At the Mountains of Madness" also published by Arkham house. It contains most of his earlier works, and does a better job providing the reader with a glimpse of the forces which shaped his work through the years than any other collection could hope to. If you are new to Lovecraft, these works would probably not be appreciated as much as others. They are much more enjoyable when one has a better understanding of what Lovecraft is all about. I would suggest starting with the collection "The Dunwich Horror and Others" also by Arkham house. It contains most of Lovecraft's most popular work, including "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Colour out of Space". For any fan or collecter of Lovecraft, however, this book is an absolute must have.

This book contains such greats as Herbert West - Re-animator, and The Strange Case of Arthur Jemyem and his Family. The Arkham House editions are the definitive Lovecraft Library. A definite must have.

In my humble opinion, there are two ways to read Lovecraft. The first, and best, is to get your hands on an original "Wierd Tales" or other pulp. There is something about the musty smell that adds to the tale. For true conisours, read them under the covers with a flashlight, late in the evening hours.

Realizing that original pulps may be prohibitively expensive, the Arkham House Editions are the next option. These hardback treasures are as much a part of Lovecraft's legacy as the stories themselves. Lovecraft would be all but forgotten if it were not for the small circle of friends who founded Arkham House, with the sole mission of keeping his writings in print. Arkham House is the definitive Lovecraft volume.

The stories in "Dagon and Other MacAbre Tales" are classics, including "Herbert West Re-Animator," "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," "The Strange High House in the Mist," "The Cats of Ulthar ," "Dagon," "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family ," "The Lurking Fear ," "The Transition of Juan Romero ," and his acclaimed essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature [revised] ."

It's great to hear from Authors on REAL supernatural experiences they've had. I thougt this was an awesome book, a great find if you come across it!

this was a excelant book, but some of the stories were pretty unbelivable.

My nephew is an aspiring horror writer. This book, including segments by his favorite authors, was the perfect gift at this early stage of his writing career.

I discovered a few authors in this wonderful collection and enjoyed these stories tremendously. I really enjoyed this collection o stories and I didn't expect to as much as I did. The book is worth its weight at least in sterling silver with about sixty tales - TRUE tales of the macabre and paranormal.

Okay, so they spelled Stephen King's name wrong on the cover. So, what? If found this book fascinating and entertaining at the same time. It is filled with stories by famous authors, both past and present. The one that sticks out the most is Ramsey Campbell's "The Nearest to a Ghost." He goes to the cemetery to scatter his mother's ashes and feels a powerful sense of grief that isn't his own. The feeling vanishes after a moment, his own grief returning. Creepy, huh? This is one of about thirty true-life experiences these people came face-to-face with. A great read.

While many will like this book for its metaphorical message, I appreciated the full-paged pictures, especially the ones showing close-ups of dandelion seeds. It always amazes me that so many children who pick the heads of dandelions to blow away the "fluff" don't realize that they're helping Mother Nature to disperse her seeds. It's also nice to see dandelions portrayed in a positive light, not as a pest of manicured lawns. This would be a great book to use for primary or preschool aged children in conjunction with the collection and study of dandelion seeds.

The simplicity of this book and its beautiful illustrations will appeal to young readers, and the messages about trust, letting go and the cycle of life are quite beautiful.

I would recommend this book for the timid child as I think they would be best able to relate to the seed that didn't want to let go. It is a simple, beautiful book with a great message of encouragement for children to get out and explore the world. I read this to my nephew who was 5 at the time and he loved it. Above all, the book sends a positive message without resorting to corny gimmicks. It is simple, beautiful, and has a wonderful message. I highly recommend it.

This is the sweet little story about a dandelion seed that will not let go because it's afraid of the world. Eventually, the winds blow it free and it travels the world and learns that it can be amazing, scary and beutiful. Eventually, it lands, grows, and casts it's seeds. One does not want to go and the dandelion having learned tells it the sun, the wind and the rain will take care of it.

The art work is well done.

However, I am not sure my daughter likes the book. She does not ask for it. However, it's soft reading style does help make her sleepy.

My 2 year olds both walked away before the end. Maybe they knew I was thinking how helpful the story will be to start preparing them now for the inevitable difficult separation from the "growth stem". Just as I was celebrating the warm and original perspective of the book I almost gagged on the treacly rear flap author profile of wife's illustrations and husband's text. But I highly recommend it

Deadly Deception is a great mystery novel, a real page turner, by first novelist, Susan P. Mucha. Compelling and intriguing from start to finish, her characters are well developed and real and the plot with it's twists and turns keeps you eagerly engaged to the conclusion. Mrs. Mucha ranks right up there with some of the best female mystery writers of our time and I look forward to her next novel with great anticipation!

Apparently this is Susan Mucha's first novel, but you couldn't tell by the quality of her writing. Deadly Decpeton is a beautifully written, fast-paced mystery/thriller which whips the reader from exotic Peru to the stately grounds of the Augusta National in Georgia. It's obvious Ms. Mucha didn't get her facts from an encyclopedia; she knows Peru and the Augusta area quite well, and readers are transported to wherever this talented writer chooses to take them.

I'm sure we'll be seeing more of this author's work. If her first book is any indication of what's to come, we're all in for a treat.

Not being much of a reader of fiction, I have to say that
"Deadly Deception" grabbed and held my attention from beginning to end. It's obvious that the author has thoroughly researched
the subjects and locations in her book. Ms. Mucha's writing
style is clean and easy to read. Her descriptions are so vivid
she makes you feel as if you are right there, in the moment, in Peru, seeing everything just as the main characters are viewing their surroundings.
This book is a page-turner...and I could be persuaded to become
a reader of mysteries now. I can hardly wait to see what Ms. Mucha plans to do with her fascinating characters in her next book.
A+.

For first time author it was a very good read. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of places and food of Peru. It made me want to return. She was able to keep the reader involved and made it a real page turner.It reminded me of the old love stories that let your imagination take over rather than have every kiss and "heaving bosom" be described in detail. I am anxious to read her next book.

I began this book with skepticism; I finished it with admiration and awe. Susan Mucha did a marvelous job with this novel. I couldn't wait to read each new chapter, breaking my own rule of one chapter a night. I can't wait for the next novel, and expect it to be as good as this one.

Matt Thomas' book is without a doubt the BEST book for any woman who is seriously considering taking up self defense. Thomas, the founder of Model Mugging, is a pioneer in women's self defense. As a graduate of his class, I look upon this book as the foundation of my self defense library. The tactics are simple, yet VERY EFFECTIVE. Ladies, read this book BEFORE you start training. You'll be glad you did.

This title was written by the founder of Model Mugging, one of the oldest and most well-known reality-based self-defense programs in the US. While the book doesn't cover the actual program curriculum it does provide the reader with a solid understanding of what to expect from taking the program under a certified instructor. The book does provide a solid overview of the difference between martial arts and self-defense as well what physical skills should be included in any good self-defense program.

Like other reviewers, I can't figure out why such a great title would go out of print. This is an excellent title by an innovator of reality-based self-defense.

This book is excellent. Don't have years to spend learing martial arts? No problem - this book teaches more in 200 pages than most courses teach in a year.

Only reservation: as one of the other reviewers points out, the photos aren't great, and there are too few of them. If only there was a DVD of this guy's work!

It is shocking that this book is out of print - it's better than any other I've read in the field.

I've actually had the chance to train with Matt Thomas, and his work is amazing. The book could certainly use better photos, and the reviewer who suggested a DVD is right-on. Of course, even Matt will tell you, there's no replacement for hands-on training. Please seek it out for yourself and the women in your lives.

I am a black belt and self-defense instructor from Erie, PA. My brother-in-law bought this book for me to help further develop and enhance the self-defense courses I teach here in Erie. I found the writing exercises extremely helpful in getting in touch with reality and one's personal emotions. The lessons were very clear and to the point. I agree, in that the arts do not really teach easy to learn techniques that are practical for everyday use. Especially women who do not study the martial arts. My sister was raped a few years ago and I am impressed at how this book educates women on not just physical protection, but how to get inside the mind of a criminal. There is also extremely valuable information about weapons defenses and multiple attackers. I will implement some of these techniques into my existing self-defense program. I will recommend to all of my self-defense graduates!

We Americans tend to forget that Vaclav Havel was an Artist, poet, writer and existentialist thinker long before we seized upon him as our own private "anti-communist hero extraordinaire." And as with most other things, we in the West tended to "fixate" on Havel as just the one-man anti-Communist sideshow: the singleton hero of the Prague Spring. That is to say, we saw in him only what we wanted to see -- only what was comfortable for our myopic vision and only what tended to calm our democratic sensibilities. For had we looked and drank just a bit deeper, there was a lot more of this self-made "artist turned political activist," to see than just our knee-jerk recreation of him through our own eyes as our own larger-than-life anti-Communist hero.

This book offers another vision of him that looks deeper into his very troubled, but nevertheless very important soul. Having had this book on my bookshelf, left unread for almost 20 years, this oversight alone makes me as guilty of seeing only the "shadow Havel as anti-Communist caricature," as the rest.

In this very thoughtful series of autobiographical interviews, the "deeper Vaclav Havel," comes through loudly and clearly. And here I mean of course the one just beyond the popular anti-Communist Western created veneer. Havel has always used his very subtle, supple and artistic mind to become more than just an Anti-Communist firebrand. In the grand tradition of other Europeans, and more than anything else, he is an existentialist humanist thinker, with much practical advice for democrats. However his primary concerns have never been just with the fetishized political games that superpowers play. Whether they be the brutal class-based politics of Communism which, before it committed suicide, had morphed into a softer form of equally fetishized version of socialism; or about the equally brutal racist-based capitalist consumer-driven democracies, which as they begin to see their own self-inflicted deaths just over the horizon, have also morphed into a "kinder and gentler" form of American racism, or what amounts to about the same, Mandela's softer version of South African Apartheid: Either way, none of these has been Havel's primary concern.

In this book we see Havel's real concerns spread out on the table, as he tells us how his keen sensibilities evolved until he learned to reject his own bourgeois class-based Communist upbringing. He learned to reject it because as he puts it "it gave me unearned privileges and alienated me from myself and from the rest of society in ways that could not be undone until I became aware enough to develop a refined sense of fairness, and until I could develop a "social emotion" that was antagonistic towards the class privileges I had inherited." Havel's "social emotion" was one that was also antagonistic towards unjust social barriers, and towards any pre-determined status awarded at birth, or based on the "false consciousness" of race superiority or any other forms of unearned status whose existence is designed specifically to humiliate, dominate and dehumanize others.

Although Vaclav rebellion against his parent's wealth is classic and familiar to us in the U.S., he did not blame them -- as he saw them as decent people merely caught up in and locked into the social customs and way of life of their time, perhaps in the same way that we Americans do when we use the same lament to excuse our own parent's evils of Jim Crow and slavery. Like his American counterparts, Havel too, even as a member of the bourgeois, preferred a sensibility that sided with the oppressed rather than with the ruling class of which, through inheritance, he was a member in "good standing."

However, unlike the typical American or South African racist, who would never grant moral superiority to those they oppress, even though classism was his natural inheritance, Havel opposed his social station at an almost instinctual level because with all of its undeserved advantages it was seen by him as morally inferior to those it oppressed. He also opposed it because of its inherited privileges, the sponging off of the powerless, due to its social injustices and the immoral barriers that tended to degrade man and condemned those it oppressed to the status of sub-humans. Havel said that by the time of the 1968 uprisings, he had become what he called "an emotional" and a "moral socialist." But even this was just a half way house on his journey to greater personal awareness and enlightenment.

As his social consciousness evolved he began to see the crisis of the world as deeper than just particular ways of organizing the economies, their respective peculiar social arrangements, or the politics of a particular system. What he saw long before it became obvious to the rest of us, is that both the East and West are suffering from the same dilemma: a crisis of alienation, a malaise in which man is isolated from himself; a conflict between an impersonal, anonymous, irresponsible, corrupt and uncontrollable juggernaut of power (the power of mega-corporations, mega-technology, and mega-dollars in politics and mega-churchs), and the elemental and original interests of man as a concrete individual.

In this sense, Havel sees this conflict in the same terms that Ernest Becker saw them: as a nostalgic loss of metaphysical certainties, a lack of a capacity to experience the transcendental, of any super-personal moral authority, or any kind of higher moral horizon. As he puts it: "As soon as man begins to consider himself the source of the highest meaning in the world he begins to lose his human dimension, and control of his humanity. We are going through a great departure from God, which has no parallel in history: we have become the first atheistic civilization."

But again, as in the case with Becker, we must resist the temptation to force these comments about God and the need for a return to spiritualism, into our own facile, lifeless and morally compressed Procrustean Beds. His reference to God and an "extramundane authority" is similar to that of Professor Cornel West's version of his own self-styled version of "Chekovian Christianity:" They both represent "Existentialist revolutions" more than they represent traditional rearrangements of existing religious norms of morality. Anyway you cut it, both West and Havel's versions of "God" seek to drive the moneychangers from the Temple.

Havel, Becker and West all put at the foot of our collective dilemma, man's arrogant anthropomorphism, in which he attempts to know and control everything. As we go about, bouncing between obscene consumption on the one hand and novel but obscene repression on the other, these great men all agree that we need to find a deeper sense of responsibility to the world and to something higher than ourselves. We need a new moral order based on returning man to his genuine human dimension, which can eventually lead to new social structures where personal humanity may again begins to rule supreme.

Far be it for me to suggest that these great men and their shared vision may have missed an important point: that man's humanity is not what it used to be. It has changed and been transformed in fundamental, perhaps even in irretrievable, ways. We cannot "walk the cat back" to an earlier more pristine moral time. Moral ground zero has changed, perhaps forever. Like everything else, our humanity too has been corrupted. We can't un-ring that bell; there is no way to back.

Sadly, the new humanity that we have created is what it is, period. There is lots of practical advice for democrats here, but Havel's larger message is, in my view, much more important.

Ten Stars

Edit of 17 Apr 08 to add links.

This book should be read as an adjunct to the author's other major book along these lines on power to the powerless.

The most gripping and troubling conclusion that I drew from this book is that the United States of America is today much closer to where Czechoslovakia was in 1968 than anyone other than the Chomsky's and Vidal's might be willing to admit. We have both a federal government and a national corporate economy that thrives on elitist secrecy and blatant lies--even our non-profit sector is corrupt, from the Red Cross to United Way to many others. The people, the citizen-voters, truly have lost all power, as well as access to the information that might give them back the power, and this is indeed a black, absurdist-realist situation.

On a more positive note, the author offers up, in the course of a long series of interviews, a number of ideas that are relevant to America today, as well as to any other emerging or re-emergent democracies in the making.

1) Model of behavior. When arguing with the center of power, do not get side-tracked with ideological debates over right or wrong. Focus on very specific concrete things (e.g. term limits, campaign finance reform, neighborhood economics) and stick to your guns.

2) Popular coalitions. Non-violent non-partisan popular coalitions are the core means of taking back the power. They represent a means for bring together groups of people from widely divergent backgrounds, with genuine social tolerance.

3) Informal networks. Even under conditions of repression and censorship, informal networks of dissidents and quasi-dissidents can be effective in sharing information through samizdat publications. [With the Internet, these possibilities explode, although caution must be taken on the fringes since the Internet is easily monitored and the more radical leaders could be declared seditionist "combatants" ineligible for their rights as citizens...speaking of the Soviet Union, of course, not America.]

4) Man versus Machine. Havel reaches his own conclusions founded in Czech literature and his own experience, with respect to the urgency of restoring the kinship and human connections that used to drive politics, economics, and other aspects of organized living. He is at one with Lionel Tiger among many others, with respect to the terribly consequences of the industrial era in terms of de-humanizing decision-making and allowing remote elites to treat individual workers as dispensable cogs in the machine, whose lives matter not a whit.

5) Neighborhoods, Politics "From Below". He joins the authors of the Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson) and of IMAGINE: What America Could be in the 21st Century (Marianne Williamson) in emphasizing the vital role that neighborhoods must play in any democracy. From political self-governance to sustainable economics to low-cost healthy agriculture to cultural cohesion, neighborhoods are the sin qua non of democracy--without active neighborhoods, one can go so far as to say, national democracy is a sham, a false theater, fully equivalent to the centralized, repressive, inefficient totalitarian control states of earlier eras.

6) Small Numbers Can Make a Difference. I was struck by how few were the original dissidents and organizers--in some cases, 20-30 in number, in others 70-80. Earlier studies have suggested that Hitler took power over millions with just 25,000 people. One can only hope that the anti-thesis is true, and that the 50 million cultural creatives can take back the power by getting serious about organizing across neighborhoods and into a national network.

7) Art and theater matter. Even under conditions of severe censorship and control, art and theater can be the manifestation of uncensored life, "life that spits on all ideology and all that lofty word of babble; a life that intrinsically resist(s) all forms of violence, all interpretations, all directives....here stood truth..."

8) Absurdity is a warning. Nihilistic and absurd theater or other works of art are a caution. They "do not offer us consolation or hope (but) merely remind( ) us of how we are living: without hope.

9) Truth can be misappropriated. The author experienced the misappropriation of his words and was both hurt and enlightened, ultimately creating a play about truth, the circumstances in which it is said, and the whom, why, and how of it.

10) Great men doubt themselves. Most touching are the author's many retrospective and current references to his insecurities, to his doubting himself even as he made history and became President of Czechoslovakia.

11) Writers live to tell the truth. This is certainly not true of most American writers who write for money, but it reflects the ideal and merits thought.

12) Change the atmosphere. If you can do nothing else, strive for a moral mobilization and a change in the atmosphere of governance, at any level. We cannot even begin to conceive the magnitude of the positive changes that can occur overnight if the people begin to speak truth among themselves. Work toward a process "in which people's civic backbones (begin) to straighten again."

13) Role of the intellectual. While I the reviewer would churlishly doubt that America has many intellectuals right now, the author's concluding words on the role of the intellectual strike me as very important: "...the intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressure and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems, of power and its incantations, should be a witness to their mendacity."

Any person concerned about the corruption and misdirection of their government and their corporate as well as non-profit entities, will be provoked and inspired by this book. It speaks to the future of human life as it might be, were we willing to stand up straight and be counted at citizen-voters, active at every level beginning with our own neighborhoods.

Living in Truth: 22 Essays Published on the Occasion of the Award of the Erasmus Prize to Vaclav Havel
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Other reviews are right on the money in terms of this being a very good book and of course it covers many key elements of the events and times during the changes in Czechoslovakia. However the are several key messages, and lessons for anyone interested in managing, motivating and leading people; particularly through difficult or uncharted changes. There are also some good reflections on the role, character and nature of theater and other individual and group activities in the arts.

This is a fine book about an amazing man. I was truly inspired by Vaclav Havel after reading this book. This book is an "easy read" even though it is largely about weighty matters. It is an interesting and enlightening book.

Whenever I need a moral boost I go back and reread Vaclav Havel's
"Disturbing the Peace". This book is a series of essays by the
dissident Vaclav Havel that were smuggled out of communist
Czechoslovakia and translated by a Havel friend in the West. Vaclav
Havel was a playwright who became a Czech dissident who became leader
of the Velvet revolution (which ousted the communists) and who finally
became president of the republic.

Vaclav Havel was the foremost
dissident under the communist regime. He openly challenged the ruling
government with such essays as "Power to the Powerless" and
"The Soul of Main under Communism". (Actually I forgot the name
of the latter essay. I think "The Soul of Man under Communism"
is an essay written by Oscar Wilde. But Havel did address this theme
in "Disturbing the Peace" and in essays he forwarded to the
communist rulers.)

One of the most exciting parts of the book is
where Havel describes the dissident communitie's efforts to publish a
Havel essay advocating that the Czech government adhere to the terms
of the Charter 77 human rights accord to which they were a signatory.
The story is spine tingling thriller complete with car chases and
obscure drop points. It reads like a John le Carre novel except it is
real.

After you read "Disturbing to Peace" I also recommend
"The Magic Lanten" by Timothy Garton Ash. This is a first hand
account of the fall of the communism as the democratic revolution
rolled across Czechoslovakia, East German, Hungary, and Romania.
Garton Ash was privy to the inner circle of people who plotted and
executed these bloodless coups. (Bloodless everywhere except, of
course, in Romania.)

There are books that make you think, and there are books that make you feel. Disturbing the Peace is both. It is the story of a man and his descent into insanity. But it is so much more than that. It is the story of ourselves, told quite plainly, and in such a way that, as a reader, it's very easy to slip in and out of the minds of all the characters, because they are us.

Disturbing the Peace made me think, feel, and believe that I was not simply watching this story unfold as it was told to me, but rather, I was a part of the story as it unfolded around me.

The brilliance of Yates is not in the writing. Rather, it's in the non-writing, that is, what he doesn't put on the page. And opening this book - and any of his books - you are invited to join in and watch or partake as the world crumbles.

Why the genius of Yates has never caught on, we'll never know. Perhaps people were afraid to peer into the stories and see such bold and disturbing representations of themselves and their lives.

Highly Recommended.

Five Stars.

is it a painfully telling portrait of american domesticity gone awry. it is a book you read from begining to end with as few breaks as possible.

This is the story of John C. Wilder and his descent into insanity. Wilder is a highly strung hard drinking affluent salesman, a husband and father. He tries to hide his low self-esteem which stems from a mild dyslexia and being somewhat short in stature. He seeks to fill the void in his life through drinking and women.

At one point, all of Wilder's ambitions seem within his grasp. He falls in love with a woman who encourages him to pursue his dream of producing films, and it seems he has a real talent for it. However, the seeds of insanity are sown within him. Time after time, he reaches out for help, to his family, to psychiatry, to AA, looking for understanding and support, but every reed breaks at his grasp. It is a disturbing novel. We are left doubting if anything could have averted his fate.

Yates always gets everything right. The dialogue, speech cadences, observations, structure: his writing is a beautiful thing to observe. He is never simplistic. Yates has a reputation for being a devasting chronicler of American suburbia. He is that, but in this novel he shows that he can deliniate urban angst and despair as well.

This novel, by one of my favorite late 20th century writers, is a compellingly realistic story of the downward spiral of an alcoholic. It's power comes from the exacting insights into the mundane existence of the characters trying to survive and thrive in modern society; along a view into the mind of a man making a step-by-step descent into a private hell. As Yates draws you into Wilder's mind, you find yourself,like the main character, unable to see the bottom, until you have made the slow descent into insanity.

I found the book incredibly insightful, with accurate representations of the madness of addiction. The book never descends to the level of moralizing or sermonizing, and that makes it all the more powerful. Yates creates an empathy between reader and character, and that makes the outcome all the more gripping.

Some have said this is Yates' weakest work, and I suppose it might be, but I think credit has to be given to Yates for even managing to pull this off. This is a tough story to write, a man's journey from sanity to insanity. Yates stays in his usual third person narration all the way, even when the main character goes completely nuts, so his delusions become our delusions.

It's not a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination - we see get a no-holds-barred view into Bellevue and the complete breakdown of the protagonist. There isn't a likeable character in the entire novel, which isn't that different from Yates' other works, but the problem here is that it's very tough to have any sympathy for the main character, John Wilder. In Yates' more successful books, no matter how nasty the characters, we can't help but to feel for their faults. Not so here.

Disturbing the Peace may not have the amazing pace of The Easter Parade or the driving power of Revolutionary Road, but it's still a pretty good read. It's a tough book to find nowadays, so if you can get your hands on it, pick it up.

A DIVISION OF THE SPOILS by Paul Scott is the last book in his series known as the Raj Quartet. The four books are classics, that have been read and will continue to be read centuries from now as readers attempt to understand what happened during the last days of the British Raj in India. I read history but I am also a great fan of well written historical fiction and these books are extremely well written historical fiction. Having read them, I am much more enlightened about the struggles which continue today betweem Hindu and Muslim.

Many of the characters from the earlier books converge in DIVISION, and the book introduces a new character, Guy Perron, who is a Chillingborough-Cambridge educated historian whose "period" and place are mid-19th Century India. Guy's character is used to tie up all the loose ends.

After arriving in India as a British army sergeant (he has elected not become an officer although his education and class clearly warrent it), Guy has the misfortune to be "chosen" by the recently-promoted-to-LtCol. and very wicked Ronald Merrick as his aide-de-camp. Merrick is still riddled with class envy, and sees in Guy an excellent opportunity to abuse someone he despises. Fortunately, Guy is able to escape from Merrick through the graces of his Aunt Charlotte who pulls strings to have him released from the army.

Fortunately for Guy, he doesn't escape Merrick before he meets Sarah Layton. Their story is told in this fourth volume and certain elements of the tale bring to mind the earlier story of Hari Kumar and Daphne Manners. In fact, it is through Guy's meeting of Merrick, Sarah, and another Chillingburrian, Nigel Rowan (who interviewed Hari Kumar in prison) that he becomes interested in the events at Mayapore in 1942 and the subsequent consequences for all involved.

As with other great classics, in DIVISION things do not always evolve as the reader would have wished. This book is very realistic -- sorrow and joy are mixed. In JEWEL IN THE CROWN, the first book in the series, Lady Chatterjee says she does not want to go to a heaven that excludes joy and sorrow because being human requires one to feel joy and sorrow.

Perhaps it is because humans can experience sorrow they are capable of experiencing joy. In the end, the reader discovers Hari Kumar's fate and the identity of Philoctetes as well as the difference between Dharma and Karma. This is a powerful series and a fabulous ending to the tale.

The Raj Quartet comes to its spectacular conclusion with "A Division of the Spoils." Of the four books, I perhaps enjoyed this one the most. The main character (Guy Perron) is observant, funny, and human, so he's easy to like. He is a complete opposite of the story's antagonist, Ronald Merrick. The scenes in which they must work together (Perron is a sergeant and Merrick his officer) are some of the best. I could hardly put this book down and finished it in just a few days.

Please do not let the length of this series dissuade you from reading it! The books are all very compelling and well-written. If you like historical fiction, they are very much worth your time. I would recommend you watch the mini-series (I rented it from Netflix), read the 4 books, and then watch the mini again. You'll get quite a bit out of it that way.

Enjoy!

Anyone reading the reviews for the previous 3 books, knows I have struggled to read these series. However, Scott absolutely redeemed himself with this final book.

The first book focused on the British occupation of India during WWII and introduced us to the "Manners" case - the only interesting bit in a book that had long waffly passages describing India. Who needs to read a history book? This book would have done it... The 2nd book focused more on the "Layton's" and was much more readable as it was the changing India as seen through the eyes of a few key characters. The 3rd book was a boring repetition of the 2nd book and this last book, about the end of the British occupation and WWII was just brilliant!

Like his much more enjoyable 2nd book, this one is told almost exclusively through the eyes of key characters we met in previous books - and it introduces us to the rakish charm of Guy Perron. I always remember Charles Dance's interpretation of Guy Perron in the BBC series making a strong impression on me, but I found the character in the book even more engaging.

This last book in the series was absolutely stunning and made persevering through the whole series somewhat worth it. I say somewhat, because it has been a real trial getting through the denser parts of Books I and III and I wouldn't push this series on anyone, even though the last book is a literary accomplishment.

I try to think if this book is readable without having read the previous books, and although I suspect it is (Scott continues to go back over vast chunks of history from someone else's point of view), it would be a shallow interpretation without the reader gaining all the knowledge from the first 3 books.

This book is just as impressive as the three others of the Raj Quartet. Once again, the cast of interesting characters is huge; the atmosphere of the time is brilliantly captured and the variety of scenes/plots is well mastered. The book is instructive and yet enormously entertaining. The Raj Quartet is one of the most rewarding pieces of literature I have ever read.

The four volumes of the Raj Quartet overlap and complement one another, while at the same time forwarding the main storyline of the slow twilight of the British ascendancy in India, always with the rape of a white girl by Indian men as the central lodestone everpresent in the background, the nightmare which is seldom mentioned but which none can drive from their minds. Events occur, are discussed, witnessed as newspaper reports, court documents, interviews, vague recollections from years later, or perceived directly by the main characters. Then the next volume will take two or three steps back into previous events, and these same events will be perceived from another angle, perhaps only as a vague report heard far away across the Indian plain, or witnessed directly by another character, or discussed in detail long after their occurrence over drinks on a verandah. This may at times seem like rehashing, indeed as one reads the four volumes one will be subjected to the account of the rape in the Bibighar Gardens many times over; but what will also become apparent is that additional details, sometimes minor variations in interpretation and sometimes crucial facts, are being added slowly to the events discussed, as though the window to the past were being progressively wiped cleaner and cleaner with successive strokes of Scott's pen. In this way he draws the picture of the last days of the Raj not in a conventional linear fashion, but recursively, and from multiple angles. One gets the clear impression of life in India during the first half of the 20th century as similar in nature: Fragmented, multifaceted, largely dependent upon perspective and experience and never perceived whole or all at once.

Book 4 is the tour-de-force of the series, the longest and the one that covers the greatest distance, emotionally and chronologically. Into the Laytons' social set come Nigel Rowan, an officer in the political branch whom we have met before in Book 2 interrogating Hari Kumar some years after his imprisonment, and Guy Perron, a sergeant in the intelligence service who is "chosen" against his will by Ronald Merrick to serve in his unit. Merrick seems deliberately to surround himself with people who dislike him: Guy Perron, Sarah Layton, and before them Daphne Manners and Hari Kumar. Rowan and Perron, incidentally, are former schoolmates of Kumar's at the posh Chillingborough Academy in England. And they're not the only ones: The British in India seem constantly reminded that Kumar symbolizes the insoluble problem of India's Britishness. He's too British for the Indians and too Indian for the British. Perron is an excellent guide through the final days of the Raj, stolid and proper yet inwardly seething with intellectual outrage. An explosive yet sombre climax in 1947 details the very end of the British presence in India, the beginnings of the Hindu-Muslim riots throughout the country, and gives an expansive sense of just how far one has come from the small town of Mayapore and the darkly deserted Bibighar Gardens.