Powell Books

Pelagia has grown up on the peaceful Greek island of Cephallonia with her father, a widower and rather eccentric doctor who has taught her to be strong and independent. She takes for granted, somewhat ruefully, the fact that she will marry a local boy and settle down to a quiet life of her own.

Instead of her quiet life, Pelagia finds herself touched by World War II. Her fiance leaves to fight, hoping to prove himself worthy of her. Meanwhile, Cephallonia is occupied by German soldiers as well as Italian soldiers, one of whom is quartered in Pelagia and her father's home.

Pelagia and her father try their best to hate this Captain Corelli, who is an Italian soldier and therefore one of their oppressors. But as he continues to be charming and even seems apologetic about his place in their lives, it becomes harder and harder to cheerfully make his life miserable.

I loved the middle of this book. I found it funny and engaging in many parts. I especially enjoyed the story of Carlo and the events that led him to Cephallonia. It was interesting to see how the characters and the island changed as a result of war, and how such an idyllic setting could be tarnished. I liked the determination of Corelli to charm Pelagia, and the pace at which their relationship developed.

However, I found the beginning and the end of the book to be weak. It was hard for me to get a handle on the characters at first, as the story kept jumping from one to the other, and didn't start off with any context to make things easier. The ending was disappointing to me as well. After such a detailed story of Pelagia's life and the building relationship with Corelli as well as the development of her own talents and ambitions, her entire adulthood was simply skimmed over. Her descendants were made of cardboard, seemingly added in not to round out the story but just to prove that time had passed her by. A vibrant character was reduced to a caricature of a weepy grandmother, which I found unsatisfying. The Pelagia and Corelli plot twist also left me feeling empty, like this book about a young woman finding her place in her world was all a waste, as she ended up pining away in unhappiness.

Friends who know I`m interested in war history recommended this book. But this is not war history. This is a rather banal love story mixed up with a lot of bloody details. If you are looking for the real stuff, go somewhere else.

Make no mistake about it. This is not a romantic novel and even though one cannot help but get carried away with the romance that gradually develops in Pelagia's life this is rather a humorous novel for even within the romance itself and the harsh reality of the war that is soon to overwhelm the life of every character there is plenty of humour making the entertainment value of the novel undeniably high. Just one reservation about the actual plot of this book or rather not so much the plot itself but the way the novel actually ends. It makes one wonder whether the author was having second thoughts about this since the end seems rather contrived and quite detached from the development of the rest of the plot, particularly if one considers the point in time at which Captain Corelli escapes from the island of Cephalonia.

In my life so far, the enormity of 17years i have NEVER read a book that was so beautifully constructed. The characters are perfect, and the beautiful island of Cephallonia leaves a taste in the mouth that lingers for months afterwards. Carlo, Antonio, Pelagia, and Dr Iannis are wonderful, and each in there own way unique. This is the only book that as soon as i finished i immediately began again. My only word of advice is not to watch the film, which pales in comparison to the book!A book that puts things in perspective!The best i've ever read!

A superbly crafted story of a woman caught in the throes of transition from deep tradition to the modern world. For Pelagia Iannis the cost of transition is heavy. Daughter of the village's widower doctor, she is caught up in global forces beyond her ken. The imperial ambitions of Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, bring the Italian army of occupation. Among the troops is Captain Antonio Corelli, artillery officer and musician. An unwitting and hesitant imperial minion, he is billeted in the Iannis household. Although the doctor urges passive resistance, Pelagia, although committed to a partisan youth, is drawn to Corelli's musical talents and unworldly charm. De Bernieres weaves an intricate tale of love, war, humour and pathos with unrivaled skill. His characters sparkle with realism, an aspect permeating this outstanding work. His descriptions of the interactions of the differing nationalities and ideologies ring vividly true.

As he builds the story through the characters and events, de Bernieres gives little away. There are continual surprises as events twist and bend the characters. Some break, others find a means to extricate themselves from a tangling fate. Pelagia bears the main burden throughout. Her love for Corelli, after a fitful start, blossoms, then is tested by the swirl of events. Other characters come into her life, remain or depart. All make some impact as de Bernieres adroitly builds her role. Each chapter becomes a minor tale in its own right, with all tied together flawlessly. Characters and events are imparted with meticulous detail, yet, like a Mozart opera, not one word would bear excision.

If you like a story that successfully ranges over a variety of issues and people, you will seek far and wide to surpass this tale. De Bernieres' skills in portraying life's complexities, yet maintaining reader attention and interest are peerless. He has clearly build his work on thorough scholarship - there's even a source list at the end. His sweeping view will leave you exhilarated and breathless, but fulfilled. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The Shadow University takes the political correctness horror of the early 90's and puts it into prospective. It was a nightmare time for professors, even those with tenure. No one cared. The female student was always right. No one, student or teacher, was safe from attack. Universities did not follow their own rules. Many good professors lost jobs and left teaching. What a sad day for higher education. This book tells the story and it is sad.

I remember trusting Siskel & Ebert for movie reviews and Consumer Reports for cars and other products. Now I have a sure fire way to determine whether or not I want to read a book (vs. judging it by its cover). I simply read Publisher's Weekly review and do a George Constanza -- the exact opposite of what they say. It has worked brilliantly. Thanks PW.

A lawyer and a professor team up to take on the American university establishment! But in this case, the two Davids have an ally: the U.S. court system. Taking college after college to court, the pair not only obtained results exonerating those faculty and students denied their rights of free speech and due process but logged some blistering denunciations of the colleges for their denial of basic Constitutional rights from the judges who heard the cases. Kors and Silvergate have since set up a website where students and teachers can register what is being done to them. Visit it at www.thefire.org and read some of what's happening. If that doesn't scare you, don't bother watching Frankenstein.

They have also set up a new website, www.campusrights.org, where students can find information on how to defend and protect their own rights on campus.

The only thing one can say against the book is that its focus is so restricted. But that is also the book's strength. For a full and thorough account of what is going on and how it got that way, you need to read other recent books on the subject, such as The Rape of Alma Mater. One of the nice things about The Shadow University is that the two authors are liberals. This is not some biased conservative ranting.

It's a pity that conservatives don't read this book and find out what true liberalism is. If they did, maybe they'd stop calling the people who have taken over the colleges "liberals." And maybe true liberals would stop thinking that the current power elite are liberals and that it is the duty of every right-thinking person to agree with them.

It is difficult to believe that only forty years ago, American colleges and universities tilted toward the right and that leftist thought and professors were the exception rather than the rule. Then starting in the mid 60s, the left tilt began, and with it an entirely new paradigm of pedagogy became institutionally entrenched. In THE SHADOW UNIVERSITY, Kors and Silverglate detail not only how this came about but also sound a clarion call to today's parents that when deciding which school to send their children that they ought to consider that school's speech codes at least as important as the rankings in US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT.

The first thing that all incoming freshman receive at most colleges is a political/social/sexual/ethnic indoctrination that compares in both kind and degree to that which used to be used in thuggish regimes of the past. They are told that white men are inherently biased and racist, that blacks have a right to exhibit the same racist attitudes that are prohibited to whites, that the credo in each catalogue that boasts of freedom of speech is immediately qualified by a depressingly long list of forbidden deeds, words, and thoughts, and ultimately that a double standard in the treatment of favored groups is quite the accepted thing.

The authors consider the writings of Herbert Marcuse as a prime reason for this astonishing turnaround. In the 60s, Marcuse argued that freedom of speech for all really amounts to a denial of that freedom towards the weaker such that the stronger could continue to dominate. His solution was to deny or reduce freedom of the stronger so that the weaker could compete on what he saw as a more level playing field. His new theory instantly was trumpted by the left as the answer to institutionalized racism. In fact, every speech code today can be directly traced to Marcuse. Most of the chapters in their book list many examples of quotes taken directly from administrators themselves in their written justifications for their decisions to punish erring students like Eden Jacobowitz of Penn, who in 1993 called a raucus group of Afro-American females "water buffalo," a term that to him meant a rude collection of obnoxious revelers but to them meant a racist euphemism. Jacobowitz spent the next year in politically correct hell, not for what was in his mind but what was in theirs. It is this probing of the inner thoughts of students that Kors and Silverglate find reprehensible. The solution they claim is that sunlight in the best disinfectant.

Such books as THE SHADOW UNIVERSITY represent a badly needed wake up call not just for students and parents, but for the power-hungry administrators who fail to realize that the pendulum that swung left in the 60s could just as quickly swing right, crushing the careers of those who fail to see the new political writing on the wal..

This book will make you angry. If it doesn't, then you did not READ it. Many of the examples in the book made me rethink how the college life is. Too often, Americans look at the universities as places of open and honest debate about ideas regarding society and then we are disappointed when we see that academia is stifling and punishing free expression.
Speech codes and suppression of politically incorrect ideas are shown throughout the book as harmful not only to the education process, but to American ideals as well.
This is an excellent expose' indicting the so-called tolerant universities as the most intolerant of them all. Whatever happened to freedom of expression? You can't say that on college campuses in the US anymore.

Before reading this book (this was the required text for a class in HTML), I had some very basic experience with HTML. I found it easy to read and remember the concepts, as they are presented in a straight-forward way, with an emphasis on real-world scenarios. The tips the author provides are valuable... I found myself using them a lot at work and on several projects. Because my previous HTML knowledge was so scattered, reading the book put my thoughts into place and provide a more formal picture of HTML and css. This book also addresses cascading style sheets and is loading with information. At this point I use it as a reference, the css appendix is comprehensive, tho I think the layout could have been done better-- some area are tough to read.

Before reading this book (this was the required text for a class in HTML), I had some very basic experience with HTML. I found it easy to read and remember the concepts, as they are presented in a straight-forward way, with an emphasis on real-world scenarios. The tips the author provides are valuable... I found myself using them a lot at work and on several projects. Because my previous HTML knowledge was so scattered, reading the book put my thoughts into place and provided a more formal and structured picture of HTML and css. This book also addresses cascading style sheets and is loaded with information. After reading the 1000+ pages, I use this book as a reference, the css appendix is comprehensive, tho I think the layout could have been done better-- some areas are tough to read.

This is a book that contains all of the answers to your HTML questions but finding them may be a frustrating task. The index is terrible. I tried to use this book for about 2 months before giving up in frustration. I can simply never find the answer to my question!

If you know a little about HTML, but are looking for a reference for day-to-day use, this is a very poor choice.

I actually bought and read the "The Complete Reference HTML second edition".

I'm sure they are similar with some slight additions explaining some newer browser compatibility issues and possible additions to HTML and the use of style sheets.

The Second Edition was literally a bad book. My copy broke down and all the pages were falling out in clumps of about 50 pages making it tough to use.

But the content of the book is simple. All or most of HTML uses, concepts and tags are explained one by one in a comprehensive manual-type book.

Not a great Tutorial type book. Not really for beginners. This is definitly a great reference though. For those who know how to use HTML but need to "checkup" on some things sometimes this book is for them.

My first "The Complete Reference" book was for Java 1.0. I was so happy with that book that when I went looking for an HTML manual, the first one I looked at was this one. And it's a good thing I did, because it's the only book I ever need to look at for a reference. It really does contain everything I can think I would need to write HTML code at any level of complexity or depth, and I've been writing HTML code since 1994, professionally since around 1997. If you're a beginner, the book spends some time in the beginning teaching you the basics and concepts, everything you should need to get started on your first pages. And if you're a novice or expert, the book will scale to your level of knowledge gracefully, it covers the gamut, even extending into Cascading Style Sheets, Dynamic HTML and a brief introduction to XML (if you need an XML manual you should get one dedicated only to XML, this reference is not complete for that purpose). The title couldn't be more appropriate, as inside the book, there is a complete reference of every single valid HTML tag and attribute you could use, even including explanations for what each attribute means! If you get just one HTML book, get this one.

Keep in mind that this book does not cover any WYSIWYG tools for creating HTML pages (such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver). This is just for writing the HTML yourself with a text editor, or to assist you in using the WYSIWYG tool of your choice, as most of them allow you to manipulate the HTML and attributes manually.

Having read Ralph's Party, I was a little worried that One-Hit Wonder would not live up to the writer's past successes. But I can happily say that I was wrong!

This is a story about Ana Wills, a girl who is unsure of herself, with a near psychotic mother, sister who was a former pop-star, and a father who was in his 80s when he died. Suddenly, her sister passes away and Ana is sent to sort through what her sister has left behind and what happened to her. Through the course of the novel, Ana learns more about her sister in one week than she ever did when she was alive.

This is a wonderful story that defies the laws of chick lit. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a good read!

I was originally attracted to this title because of the cover art, and the book's title. Being a guy who is totally into diva's, this title intrigued me. The book was far from what I expected it would be about, but I was absolutely not disappointed! The story was heart-warming and captivating. Our main character, Ana, upon the mysterious death of her "pop star" half-sister, Bee, is sent off to London by her agoraphobic mother, to close up Bee's apartment and personal affairs. While in London Ana encounters a long list of characters (that are well developed by the author) and not only finds out numerous things she didn't ever know about her sister, but she finds a new life of her own. Since I am not a professional writer, my review obviously won't do this title justice. Get a hold of a copy and read it! I recommend it highly. I have never read a title by Ms. Jewell before but I most definitely will read other works by this most talented author.

I was again disappointed by Lisa Jewell with One Hit Wonder. This story was a bit out there and ends so unbelievably happy and perfect, it's sickening.

The story is about a beautiful and troubled pop star named Bee, who dies young. Her agoraphobic, mentally abusive mother, and her sister she hasn't seen in over a decade. Ana, Bee's sister, goes to London to clean out the apartment of her estranged older sister. She comes in contact with her friends and tries to explain the mystery of her life and her death. It's all just way too unreal and out there

After leaving this to sit on my bookshelf for well over a year, I finally got around to reading it, I can only say I wish I had read it sooner. What a great book! In turn heartbreaking and humorous, we follow Ana as she makes her first trip to London, to collect the belongings of her long estranged and recently deceased older sister Bee. In going through her sisters things, she finds evidence of a much different and possibly deeper person than she had imagined over the course of their 13 year estrangement. Feeling a sudden urge to find out exactly what happened to her once famous sister, she begins meeting her friends and tracking her movements during the last few months of her life. She starts out as a shy, withdrawn country girl and soon discovers not only her sisters secrets but her own repressed personality. Highly likable characters and an engaging plotline put this one high on my list of favorites.

I just finished reading this book a few minutes ago, and I don't know what else to exclaim except "I totally loved it!"

Confession time... despite the scores of books I have read, I am one of those who will browse in a bookstore, see a flashy book cover or a catchy title and, like a fish to bait, grab it, and peek at what's inside (yeah, many of you probably do it too, but think you're too hep & packed full of intelligentsia to admit it, even to yourselves!). The title "One-Hit Wonder" and its day-glo cover lured me in, but what convinced me to buy it was to opening chapter, which consists of a former pop-star's letter to her estranged kid sister. Without knowing anything else about the plot, I was moved by the letter itself.

Out of the letter and into the story: young, tall, nerdy and awkward Ana Wills travels from her sleepy hometown of Devon to London, where her big sister was recently found dead. The original purpose of this trip is to clear out her sister's apartment and tie up loose ends. But after searching through her sister's belongings ---and making the seemingly simple discovery that her sister had a cat named John (who is MIA)--- Ana decides to search out people who were friends with the sister she barely knew. What is intended to be a one day clean-up trip into the big city turns into a belated coming of age novel.

And if one had to boil this story down to one category, that's how I would nail it: "belated coming-of-age." The cool thing is, we don't have to nail it down to one genre. This book can be categorized as a mystery, saga, pop-culture, slice of life, romance... Lisa Jewell encompasses quite a lot of stories in just one story.

What intrigued me throughout the story was the unpredictable nature of the characters as a whole. It's not that each character did things mind-blowingly against his or her nature. The unpredictability shows in the wide variety of characters strolling in-&-out of this novel; some are as simple and predictable as a Charles Dickens character or a Speed Racer villain; other folks have much more substance than meets the eye. Lisa Jewell will keep you guessing, which I found to be half the fun of the book.

"One-Hit Wonder" is both a fun and emotional read. And if you are one of those guys who can't get into "chick-flicks" and see this as a literary chick-flick, well... just like the occasional "Steel Magnolias," I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by this totally awesome tale!

Let me first say, that I am one of those who considers Field Marshal Erik von Manstein one of the best operational minds to have fought in the Second World War. His achievment in the post-Stalingrad months (Dec 1942- Feb 1943) will go down as a classic in mobile warefare. Enough has been written about his 1939 operational plan to invade France to fill a volume. In short, he was the consumate military professional.

Which is why it pains me to offer only a 3 rating to his memiors. Don't get me wrong. The memior reads very well; the translation is excellent, and the prose is easy. My main complaint lies with the memior's content. I first read Lost Victories twenty years ago and took most of what Manstein wrote as fact. However, as I read more and more about not only the Wehrmacht, Germany, and Hitler, I began to doubt the narrative that von Manstein and the Feld Herren as a whole have been put to paper. This memior is long on ommisions, and short on introspection. Like other senior officers, Manstein piles the blame on the most senior Wehrmacht leadership while conviently excusing himself. The sad fact remains that von Manstein rarely vocalized any complaints concerning the Nazis treatment of men like Fritsch or Bloomberg (his former superiors sacked by Hitler), the introduction of the swatiska on thier uniforms, the establishment of the Waffen SS, or the treatment of Polish civilians, Jew, or captured officers. In his memiors, Manstein does take a few pages to offer his criticisms of Keitel (OKW) and von Braunstisch (OKH), yet not once did he explicitly critique in name the poor tactical generalship of either General Hoepner -the 4th Panzer Army Commander and his immediate commander during the initial stages of Barbarossa, or Field Marshall von Leeb -the overall commander of the Northern Army Group. This I thought was rather odd considering that these 2 men at that stage of the war still excercised complete freedom of movement. Manstein vaguely critiques the "High Command" (ie either the OKH or Hitler himself). Like other generals, Manstein leveled his stongest critiques on those that were dead, and thus couldn't defend themselves.

The Chapters covering Stalingrad at the battles along the Don are the most dramatic of the memior. Many do find fault with Manstein's decision not to relieve General Paulus of command of the 6th Army in November-December 1942. This was a period of high drama and emotion, when as most experts believe that the 6th Army could have broken out of Stalingrad. It was also the period of greatest danger when the entire front was collapsing back to Rostov. Manstein's reasons for not relieving Paulus are clear enough -namely he didn't have the authority to do so. The other reason, which he barely skirts around is the fact that the Soviets had nearly a half million men, 3000 guns, and 2000 tanks around Stalingrad. If the 6th Army did breakout, this vast force would be unleashed and the entire Don Bend as well as von Kleists Army Group in the Kuban would have been become a giant tomb for the Germans. Manstein after the war could have offered this terrible but truthful fact to the public, but instead said the sacrifice of the 180,000 men of the 6th Army was never an option. Somehow I do not believe him.

The last area of criticism is leveled at von Manstein's decision to back Zeitzler's (OKH) and Hitler's decision to strike at Kursk. In his memiors, he does say he strongly desired to wait until the Soviets struck first and then offer a counter blow on "the back hand". That is, he wished to conduct another mobile counter attack like he did earlier in March at Kharkov - this time from the Northwest and drive the Soviets offensive forces Southward into the Black Sea. This operation, brilliant in conception and most probably would have had sufficient motorized forces to execute was never considered. Hitler couldn't stomach the idea of giving another inch of territory (Manstein's plans included a planned withdraw initially so he could spring his trap), instead followed Zeitzler's idea of a pincer attack on the Kursk sailent. For some reason, von Manstein allowed himself to initially concur. Again, I find this strange. Manstein never was one to keep quiet when considering other people's failures. OKH's Kursks attack lacked imagination, was totally predictable and lacked any strategic value. On paper it looked like the "safe" plan. Even if it was successfull, Manstein, Zeitzler, Guderian, and most of all Hitler knew the Soviets had sufficient strength to bleed the outnumbered German's white. Manstein's plan, on the other hand, had all of the makings of a classic battle of annihilation, which could have bought Hitler another year, or maybe even a stalemate in the East.Yet, Manstein offered little defense of his plan.

Finally, von Manstein like Guderian, Halder, Kluge, Rundstedt, et als. said he had no prior knowledge of the Final Solution, Russian Slave Labour, and the killing of POWs. He says very little, but does offer up evidence of the Soviet's own crimes while he commanded the 56th Panzer Corps in the Courland. As time goes by, I find this harder and harder to believe.

Overall, the reader will have to judge for himself. Of all the memiors, this one is the best written, and there are many times where one can see Manstein's genius as he discusses in his cool, rational prose the many tactical and strategic problems he faced. He is also very kind when ever he writes about the enlisted soliders who served under him, especially the German NCOs. He was never an "armchair" general. Both as commander of the 38th Infantry Corps, and the 56th Panzer Corps he led from the front, and made his decisions based upon first hand knowledge. It was also heartbreaking to read about the death of his only son in 1943. While Erik von Manstein had many faults, he was anything but the stiff, monocoled Prussian caricture that some in the West like to paint of the Prussians. He was a brilliant yet flawed general. His memiors should be read, but critically so. While reading the memiors it is also good to keep in mind that her served one of the cruelist dictators of the 20th Century.

German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein wrote "Lost Victories" in 1955, ten years after the end of the Second World War and eleven years after he had been dismissed from command on the Russian Front by Adolf Hitler.

Von Manstein served in the German Army from 1914 through the First World War, the bitter interwar years, and the major campaigns of the Second World War in Europe. He was, by all accounts, a master of the operational level of war, whether as a commander or as an outstanding staff officer. His memoirs are still in print at least in part because his narrative powers were equal to the task of describing the military operations in the Second World War in which he participated. "Lost Victories" may provide as good an account from the German side of the War in Europe as we are likely to get from a participant. His understanding of the huge battle waged over an immense manuever space in Western Russia is almost as unique as the nature of the fighting itself. If his account is tinged with some "I" and "me", that is perhaps to be forgiven in an autobiography by a man who saw all too clearly the wasted strategic opportunities to conduct a war with a defined and achievable political purpose.

This book is highly recommended to students of the military art and of the Second World War.

It is a "must read" strategy book by the one of the best WW2 German generals. It is not the full memoirs. Still it is a 5 star (great) reading.

Lost Victories is an excellent first-person memoir of some of the critical battles of the Second World War. Its primary focus is on the Eastern Front in Russia and the Ukraine; von Manstein speaks some about the attack on France in 1940 and opines on what might have been done with England thereafter, but for the most part, his command was in the East.

This is not a starter treatment of the Second World War, and it will appeal only to those readers who are looking for an in depth discussion of certain topics. It is not a comprehensive treatment of the war -- von Manstein naturally only discusses theaters in which he was involved directly, and the book generally focusses on military matters, leaving political topics for others. It also proceeds in some detail, occasionally even providing a division-by-division account of battles. That was sometimes more than I wanted, and I found it possible to skim some of the more detailed parts without sacrificing the overall discussion, however.

Those readers who seek a deeper understanding of the military conflict in the East will be rewarded. I found two features of the book particularly compelling. The first is the lengthy discussion of the Stalingrad endgame (the German Sixth Army was already encircled by the time von Manstein arrived on the scene). The second is the author's discussion of Hitler's strengths and (mostly) defects as a supreme military commander. There is a chapter devoted to this discussion, but the comments and impressions that von Manstein sprinkles throughout the other chapters are even more telling.

I had two small critcisms. First, the book would be more enjoyable with more and better maps, so that those of us who don't have a deep familiarity with the geography of southern Russia and the Ukraine can better place the action. There are a few maps, but they aren't always well-placed in the book and they often don't include all of the key locations.

Second, I wanted more discussion of Operation Citadel (Battle of Kursk), which was one of the critical engagements of the war. I think that von Manstein's actually wrote an in-depth discussion of this battle, but that the editors of this edition chose to replace it with a shorter discussion that the author wrote later for a magazine. That would explain why this chapter is uncharacteristically brief and why its style seems out of place with the others.

Overall, this is a fascinating read, and it has enriched my understanding of the war on the Eastern Front.

Lost Victories is superior to Guderian's Panzer Leader and also better than 'Panzer Battles'. The early chapters on the planning and evolution of the Polish and French campaigns is remarkable. Manstein accomplished the near impossible at Sevastopol and almost the impossible at Kursk where (as was often the case) his carefully laid plans were perverted by the powers above. His firm stance against getting German armies sucked into city fighting beginning with Warsaw were tragically forgotten by Stalingrad. His theories about mobile defence, attacking on the other side of a river to defend a bridgehead etc... were revolutionary for their time. It may have been a different story in Normandy in 1944 if Manstein had been in charge rather than the hodge podge of commands which included the discredited Rommel and the over the hill Rundstedt. One of the main reasons the Germans were defeated is that experienced, brilliant generals like Manstein were eventually replaced by yes man that far from strengthening Hitler's position hastened his downfall.

I bought this for my dad for his birthday a few months ago because I consider him to be a remarkable person as well. He thoroughly loved it and is having my mom now read it. If my dad says it's good than it is so.

I have to agree with another reviewer...this is banal and boring. Most of the essays are highly repetitive (i.e. be good to others, have faith in God, be a good role model, make peace not war...blah,blah,blah). Sure, people have a right to their beliefs and I do not presume to argue against those; nonetheless, the beliefs are uninspired and typical, revealing little more than "Wow, we all want the world to be a better place, and it can only come about if you believe what I believe."

This ties into my final point: virtually all of the essays had a didactic tone. Growing up in the midwest, I have no desire to be taught what I should believe.

Great collection from ordinary to famous people - from the series titled "This I Believe" on Public Radio. Bought as a gift to inspire a young writer.

Short stories that share the reality and persistence of the common American. Some really hit home. Others are lighthearted and yet profound.
Recommended.

A book that is worth the words that they are written on. Personal beliefs are unique due to individual lifestyles which are reflected by the inspirational essays making up this book. Spend your money and you will be very glad you did.

Anthony Powell's masterpiece "A Dance to the Music of Time" is essential reading for any lover of literature.

"A Dance to the Music of Time" is to Modern British Literature what Ben & Jerry's is to ice cream -- fabulous fare to be savored, appreciated and remembered. If you enjoy Charles Dickens (especially "David Copperfield" and "Great Expectations"), Thomas Hardy ("Return of the Native," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles"), Evelyn Waugh ("Decline and Fall," "A Handful of Dust"),and C.P. Snow ("The Light and The Dark", "The Masters"), you will love Powell's amazing tour de force. And if you enjoy Powell, you will probably also enjoy the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian! Great writing, memorable characters, convoluted plots -- what more can a reader ask?

First off the mark, this is a review only of the "First Movement", the first three novels, the title of this volume (q.v. the top of the page). I don't know why reviewers who have read the entire opus have decided to post their reviews here when there is a complete set available on Amazon under which they can post such reviews. It rather spoils it for the rest of us who have only read this volume. In any event, this is my review of that volume; you can find my reviews of the other three volumes under their respective titles after I read them. ----Do I sound a bit too Widmerpool here?

The comparisons with Proust: Proust is much better, more poetic and profound, than Powell. The narrator, Marcel, pulls you in to an almost solipsistic universe in which he, while outwardly passive, remains the main character throughout in his work, exposing the readers to the deep vicissitudes in his intense inner life. Our narrator here, Nick Jenkins, seems an almost completely empty vessel save for his detached reflections. That's how it seems to me....so far.

It also seems to me that to really catch the wry humour here you have to have lived in England or among English people for a considerable amount of time. If one reads the exchanges herein in American accent, the delicious nuances fall flat. Such as in an exchange as this one where Eleanor and Sir Gavin are debating whether to attend the luncheon at the Donners castle:

"I don't know what you call neighbours," said Eleanor. "Stourwater is twenty-five miles at least."

"Nonsense," said Sir Gavin. "I doubt if it is twenty-three."

That cadence that leads up to the stress on the final syllable, "three", is what makes the exchange so gorgeously droll. Yes, it is still somewhat funny in American English. But, well, you see what I mean.

Despite these reservations, I find myself in profound disagreement with the reviewer who says that this volume is "literally about nothing." The judgment holds water only if you believe that life is about nothing. As Nick reflects at one point, "Even in the quietest forms of life the untoward is rarely far from the surface."

And how this volume bears this out!

I usually dislike coming-of-age novels, but based on other reviews I decided to try this. It is not your normal angst ridden type of such. This is humorous. That raises it several notches in my estimation.

If you appreciate British society, you will like this. If not, you probably won't. This isn't an everyman that could be set elsewhere (USA for instance). The very Britishness is what makes it work.

Amazon's description is sufficient to explain where Powell is going with this series. I am looking forward to reading the 2nd Movement.

"A Dance to the Music of Time," an engrossing, highly-literate, highly comic 12-book series by British author Anthony Powell, had to have been one of the highlights of latter 20th century writing to those who appreciate a good, funny book. And it had to have been of riveting interest to some, those who can never get enough of Public Broadcasting Systems' "Masterpiece Theatre/Upstairs Downstairs" entertainments. In fact, it was of riveting interest to me: I remember, in real time, eagerly awaiting the appearance of each next book. I felt more or less like those 19th Century Dickens fans, so eager to learn what had become of Little Nell that they climbed the cliffs of Montauk, New York, to be the first to shout their inquiries to incoming British sailors. So, now that the series is complete, it has been collected into four movements, each including three of the original novels. The first starts with "A Question of Upbringing," "A Buyer's Market," and "The Acceptance World."

If you are reading this review, "A Question of Upbringing" may be as close as you'll ever get to Eton, the legendary English public school - for which, to us, read private school - experience. It is set shortly after World War I. We meet our narrator, Nick Jenkins, and his two closest friends. Peter Templer, already a ladies' man, whose unfortunate incident will hint at much to come. Charles Stringham, already rich and reckless. Then there is the headmaster, LeBas, a great comic creation. Also Kenneth Widmerpool, an even greater, more resonant comic creation, known at school for the wrong sort of overcoat, and his overwhelming desire to succeed. We will continue to meet him in future. We meet Templer's famously rich and beautiful mother, Mrs. Foxe, her latest husband, Buster, a navy man, and see Jenkins' first crush on Jean, Peter's sister. Then we go briefly to France, where Widmerpool pops up again, and onto Oxford and the great world of London.

At Oxford we meet another great comic creation, one of the dons, Sillery, known as Sillers, who's busy giving Sunday afternoon teas, enabling him to keep a finger in every possible pie. We also meet Mark Members and J.G.Quiggin; who, according to Sillers, live quite near each other at home, and are possibly related, and who, like Jenkins our narrator, have literary ambitions.

"A Buyer's Market" takes our characters to London, where those wishing to begin to establish literary careers. We see quite a lot of Deacon, an elderly, homosexual, not so talented artist, and of his tenant, Barnby, a more talented, third generation artist, with an eye for the ladies. And we meet quite a few ladies, several of them beautiful: Gypsy Jones, Baby Wentworth, Bijou Ardglass. Widmerpool pops up again. And, we see more of those famous debutante dances, and the dinners thrown before them, than you're likely to find anywhere else. Finally, we are introduced to one of the abiding passions of the thirties: Communism, in its Stalinist and Trotskyite embodiments.

"The Acceptance World," set as the world approaches the Great Depression, gives us an even larger gallery of entertaining, larger than life characters. Templer and Stringham have married, unsuccessfully, as has Jean Templer: Jenkins will find himself falling in love with her again, as a grown-up this time. We meet Dicky Umfraville, an older man who will take away Stringham's former sister-in-law, Ann Stepney, from Barnby, and marry her himself. Further, Peter Templer's wife Mona, whom we initially met as an artist's model, will suddenly find the literary/political worlds more interesting than that of the just plain rich.

Mind you, Powell is no mere stenographer; he creates the rhythmic beat of "A Dance to the Music of Time," with thought, care, philosophy, perception, irony and wit. If you always wished you could climb into "Masterpiece Theatre" and live there, this series is for you.

This non-fiction book is about the expedition of John Wesley Powell and their pioneering and death-defying exploration of the Grand Canyon in 1869. Powell, a college professor who had lost an arm at Shiloh, was well-prepared to map the canyons of the Colorado and do a scientific andgeological survey. Unfortunately, he was no leader, and the expedition suffered terribly for it. He rounded up a crew of mountain men and ne'er-do-wells, as well as a few neurotic former Civil War veterans and set off in rowboats that couldn't have been more ill-suited to running the violent rapids of the Colorado. Powell and his men saw amazing sites, but they almost perished multiple times. Finally there was a mutiny in which several men ended up leaving the party and trying to hike out of the canyon(they were never seen again); the others ran the rapids and somehow lived to tell the tale.

While I liked learning more about Powell's expedition, Dolnick has little sense of pacing, and uses annoying modern metaphors every time he gets the chance. The result is a plodding read on what should have been a can't-miss story. Down the Great Unknown has its merits, but the definitive book on Powell and the Grand Canyon has yet to be written.

Reviewer: Liz Clare, co-author of the historical novel "To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis & Clark"

I've "rafted" the upper Colorado.

Of course that was in a motorized raft, led by experienced pilots, with a map and they did all the cooking and if something really bad happened the ranger service could chopper in and get me (Hey, I *did* hike out from Phantom Ranch)

I can't conceive of doing it in an ungainly rowboat, without a steering oar, having little provisions, without a map or even knowledge of the river (what happens if you hit a 100 ft fall and nowhere to portage?), and where a broken ankle would have meant an almost certain death -- and with one arm.

Truthfully, its amazing this exposition survived.

Dolnick weaves in Powell's embellished account with the other expedition journals to craft a balanced account of the expedition, along with correlating the trip with known features of the canyon. Dolnick describes the tensions within the team -- categorizes their moves, good and bad and tracks their trailblazing passage.

Excellent read.

I enjoyed this book very much. So much that I have loaned it to family and friends to enjoy.

This is a pretty decent book for the newcomer who has never read anything about Powell. I found it less entertaining than my fellow reviewers though, as it follows the tedium of the daily journals a little too closely. I also found the narrative to be interspersed with too many digressions. These range from opinions of the Green/Colorado river by modern rafting experts to accounts of other early rafting expeditions, and a lengthy 2-chapter segment on the American Civil war and Battle of Shiloh. This latter exercise contributes nothing to the book, by the way! The reader is also left in the dark about the Native American peoples, Mormon settlers, and miners who inhabited this area at the same point in time ... Really, it is as if the expedition were done in a vacuum. Even worse was the lack of information on 9 of the 10 men who took part in the expedition. While there is more than enough about John Wesley Powell, readers get only sketchy details about the lives of the other 9 men. Even the simplest details like where these men were born is left out, nor are we given much about the kinds of lives they lived (careers, families, etc.) prior to the expedition (and precious little afterwards as well). Although 6 of these 9 men were, like Powell, fellow Union veterans of the Civil War, but we get nothing about their wartime experiences! We also have no clue what motivated them to join this expedition. This oversight would not doubt have suited the egotistical Powell, but is a serious oversight for a modern historian.

This book was informative but not a real "page turner". The author went off on tangents often that took away from the story at hand. It was not a bad book, but it was not full of the adventure that you would have expected the trip to have been.

What a wonderful read. I'd recommend this book to anyone. I intend to read everything this agent brings to press, as she's obviously identified a hot new author. I look forward to many more hits from both author and agent.

Here's a writer who really builds you up so you're tense in your chair and whipping the pages over quickly. The writing style just engulfs you. Serioiusly, it engulfs you like one of those kamikazi sharks, and then the characters get in your head with their idiosyncractic and neurotic chatter. The story immediately is happening, and the gears are clicking. I was so built up to whatever the ending was going to be, and then, I was like, It ends here? Without giving away the plot, or the ending, I'll just say that the plot gives a reader everything a reader wants, but the ending is one of those endings where people either really love it or really hate it. Well, I didn't hate the ending. I just thought the ending was a couple more pages away, but a couple more pages aren't written, so I was disappointed. But the journey to that last page was thrilling, and I would have to say that despite how it ends, I really enjoyed this book. It's a writer's first book, so all the patches can't be covered the first time around, and she covers a lot more than a lot of people out there with their first books. I recommend this book and give it four stars for good writing, great character development, a solid plot--but the lacking I felt to be in the ending is what made me take one star out to make it four instead of five.

I suppose a story involving estranged sisters, extra marital affairs with nannies & missing children, would not normally be a breezy read, but in the case of The Mushroom Man- it is.

The novel switches back and forth so quickly across the minds of its' myriad characters, that the reader doesn't stay in any of the heavy spots long enough to become weighed down by their troubledness. This could be a bad thing depending on your expectations, and would have made for a very different read had Powell decided to stretch out the more adult issues, but she didn't- and it keeps the tale as soft as the dreams of the children within the pages.

Overall, the book is a sweet read, but I think the darkness that shadows the minds of most of most of the adults in the book could have been explored a bit more deeply- it could have added another layer that would have made the bright & the dark, so often found in fairytales, (which this book emulates in many ways) a more interesting, multi-faceted contrast.

Powell seems to have a nack for storytelling, and I look forward to her next endeavor- I think she may have the ability to go deeper, which would make her writing less forgettable.

A good, quick, escape novel, but not something I'd pass on to friends unless they were looking for a super light read.

...but I don't think so. I've read most of the reviews below, and the only one I can really agree with is the one that only gave the book one star - I wouldn't slag it quite that much, but I was very disappointed. I saw this novel in a local bookstore a few weeks ago, and it looked interesting - after picking it up and reading it, I felt let down. I found the voice the author chose a bit too child-like for the things that went on in the story (and I won't give away any more of the plot that the jacket blurb does, don't worry) - it was fine for the storyline concerning Lily (the young girl who goes missing in the woods in search of the Mushroom Man), but it grated badly in the more `adult' areas of the story. I also felt that the characterizations were extremely shallow - again, more like what I would expect in a children's book, or at least in a book for adults that deals with its storyline from a child's point of view. The ending tied everything up much too neatly, and left me with the impression that the writer had either (a) run out of steam or ideas, or (b) simply got tired of trying to see the book through to a proper end.

If you're looking for intelligent writing that employs a child's viewpoint without insulting the intelligence of the adult reader, there are many, many options out there more satisfying than this novel: Alison McGhee's amazing SHADOW BABY; Erri de Luca's luminous GOD'S MOUNTAIN; N. M. Kelby's IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS; Polly Whitney's stunning THIS IS GRACEANNE'S BOOK; Ben Rice's POBBY & DINGAN; Sharon Wyse's THE BOX CHILDREN; Gaetan Soucy's THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WAS TOO FOND OF MATCHES; Eliza Minot's THE TINY ONE; Elizabeth Graver's THE HONEY THIEF; Kathy Hepinstall's THE ABSENCE OF NECTAR; Brian Hall's THE SASKIAD...the list goes on and on. Some of these novels feature very young characters - some of them are more `coming-of-age' novels - but they're all superb.

Charlotte and Beth are sisters. Charlotte lives in London with her 6-year-old daughter, Lily, and her straying husband, Richard (straying with their au pair, Pavlova). Beth lives in the Welsh country with her 11-year-old triplet daughters, Amy, Jude, and Samantha, and her teenage son, Joseph (and his girlfriend, Nest). Charlotte is tight, confined, controlling; Beth is easy, genial, and open. It's been a long time since they've seen each other, but finally Beth convinces Charlotte to bring Lily over for a visit. Amy, wanting to be Lily's favorite triplet, promises her a bedtime story that first night, and so is born the Mushroom Man, an "old hermit with special fairy-seeing powers" who invents mushrooms to protect his fairies from the rain. Lily is enthralled. ("What do fairies travel in? Carriages?") The next morning, she and her cousins go mushroom picking in the forest ... and she vanishes. When found, she is full of talk about this Mushroom Man. She wraps a present for him. And she disappears again. The police are called (along with dogs). But the triplets are convinced there's only one way to get Lily back now, and their plan requires a host of other children and a strong belief in fairies.

I found THE MUSHROOM MAN very hard to review, probably because I came up short on words to describe it. This story has the magical quality of a young child, the unsullied perfection of a newly frosted cake. It reads like a fairytale and at times seems almost simple -- the language is trimmed, childlike in places, dreamy and surreal throughout. Yet on a different level the story has hidden meanings, incredible tenderness and understanding, and a startling maturity. What seems on the surface to be no more than a happily-ever-after tale is actually a subtle study of mothers, daughters, marriage, siblings, love, and fantasy. Beth is widowed but there's a man who loves her; Charlotte is married but losing her man. The triplets and Joseph are missing their dad; Lily is looking for a way out of her tangled family. "I want to stay up in my fairy palace forever and ever." By the end, I had tears in my eyes.

I wish I could sum THE MUSHROOM MAN up in a couple words. I can't. I can only recommend reading it for yourself and seeing if you can.

All in all, James Lawrence Powell did a superb job in writing this book. He is highly opinionated and interprets data in a manner to support his fundamental belief (that an asteroid caused the KT extinctions).
I advise readers to get a balanced view by also reading "The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controvery" by Charles Officer and Jack Page. I felt that Powell covered the topic very thoroughly and provided historical context to help the novice extinctions reader. I felt that the book was very weak in dicussing the paleontological aspects of the extinction. Next revision perhaps.

I did't find this book to be a particularly good review of the dinosaurs-vs-meteorite controversy. The narrative is clear and captivating, and accounts of the several open (or closed!) disputes, rooted in disparate fields of Earth sciences, is made accessible to the layreader or those with just a modest background in natural sciences. Nevertheless, Powell holds a one-sided approach right from the beginning, pointlessly crusading against some supposedly general backward attitude in geologists and paleontologists that actually never was there, except for a very few unfortunate cases. Everyone now agrees on evidence for a massive extraterrestrial impact dated around 65 million years ago, but the main issue is presently whether that was the ultimate cause of the mass extinction or other earth-bound factors and feedbacks played a role in driving interactions between physical environment and the biosphere toward a mass extinction. Powell leaves no room for such developments.
In particular, I'd have two specific objections to specific cases presented in the book: 1)On pages 172-174 taxonomic analysis of dinosaur diversity in the highest stratigraphic stages of the Cretaceous in Montana is reported as evidence in favour of a sudden crisis of the original ecosystem. Pete Sheehan and co-workers carried on their studies at the taxonomic rank of families, which resulted numerically stable with time approaching the K-T boundary. Only, John Horner recently reviewed their work at a species level, likely to be statistically and biologically more reliable indicator of biodiversity, and found out a steady decrease of dinosaur types through time. Such reconsideration of Sheehan's research thus reverses evidence against the impact hypothesis! 2) The section "Did impact cause all extinctions?" introduces the final part of the book which has absolutely nothing to do with the K-T event per se, and presents us with Raup's "impact-kill curve" which was originally just an interesting exercise in statistics, but lacking a solid connection with the actual geo-paleontological database of major mass extinctions (let alone minor ones..) and thus oversimplifies the subject. Yet the author all too enthousiastically takes sides with the "impactors" and loses objectivity, even falling in contradiction (Page 192:"Not enough firm evidence is available to corroborate the claim that impact is responsible for any other mass extinction boundary than the K-T event..." Page 196:"..how are we to escape the conclusion that not just in theory, but in practice, impact has caused many extinctions?")
More poignantly however, scientific arguments and debates against the "impact hypothesis" haven't been introduced thoroughly enough but too quickly glossed over, although numerous in the recent scientific literature...
Without deceiving myself of having read a downright objective account, I'm afraid this is the best available book about the (still ongoing...) debate, together with J.D.Archibald's "Dinosaur Extinction and the End of an Era: What the Fossils Say", which is possibly far more objective though...

This is one of the best science books I have ever read, and a great description of how science works from the inside. Scientists aren't impartial godlike figures, they're human beings just like the rest of us.This book details how a geologist, by bringing his father an interesting rock--a polished specimen that included the K-T boundary layer, deposited when the dinosaurs all vanished--started a controversy that revolutionized and redefined the entire field of earth sciences. Personally, I love it when that happens, that's how science is supposed to work, but people who have built their entire careers on the old view of things can have a very difficult time accepting a new paradigm, and will go to ludicrous extremes to defend the old one to their dying breath. The impact theory of extinctions is one of the scariest concepts I have ever come across, but I am a lot happier knowing how things really work. This is an utterly fascinating read, and I can't recommend it strongly enough. To anyone interested in geology, astronomy, dinosaurs, (who isn't interested in dinosaurs??), or the workings of science, I can only say---READ THIS BOOK!!!!

One of the great scientific revolutions of our times has been the recognition that the biological evolution of Earth is influenced random impacts by comets and asteroids. When this concept was put forward in 1980, it was radical; today it is the accepted wisdom in paleontology, geology, and evolutionary biology. Jim Powell tells a fascinating story of the evidence for this transformation and of the scientists who have been protgonists in the struggle to understand this evidence and integrate it into our broader undestanding of our planet. This is one of the best books ever written to trace the history of a scientific controversy and of the people involved, warts and all.

I was hoping for a balanced analysis supporting the dinosaur extinctions via an asteroid doing a number on mother earth. Instead I got a steady dose of denunciations towards anyone who disagreed with the asteroid theory. The tone is palatable at first but after a while repeating the same canard over and over does tend to get tiresome. Around page 170 or so I realized that I was reading an apologist for the asteroid theory.

I was very disappointed that other theories were given short shrift and at times almost mocked. This is a so so book about dinosaur extinctions but I am waiting for a truly meaty and balanced book.