Robertson Books

While this book was published in the 1930's I found it surprisingly contemporary. The main story was of a doctor unjustly blamed for the death of one of his patients. This book does have romance as its main story with a satisfying ending, but I liked the way the author also showed how some deal with injustice well and some deal with it not so well. Each of us has a 'sob story' that we can overcome or which can overcome us. There were several side stories as well and I think much of this novel describes the human condition from the 1930's as well as from our current time.

At first, the hare is not as inconsiderate and boastful, nor the tortoise quite as virtuous as Jones might have us believe in her version of the fable. In fact, I thought this might become a parody of the moral about the race not always going to the swiftest (maybe the fitter hare might win for once). However, the two animals take their customary roles after this initial originality. It's the familiar tale after all, with some reworking of the pieces.

Illustrations are quirkily interesting, colorful though not vibrant, and a bit too cluttered. Jones shows a deft narrative touch when she describes the other animals helping Tortoise ("A family of frogs jumped into their pond and splashed water all over Tortoise to cool him down."), and she pulls off an exciting finish line.

Neatly cut holes in the center of each page (the pages resemble a collection of old 45 vinyl sleeves) reveal the center of the facing illustration. This is a nice, slightly updated rendering of the fable that younger kids will especially enjoy, but it's not as satisfying as it might have been.

To non-Germanic readers, Heinrich Heine is predominantly known as a poet. His verse has inspired music by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, the majority of the inspiration coming from his Book of Songs. In The Harz Journey and Selected Prose, a number of works of prose, some unfinished, some complete, have been collected to show the range, wit, satirical skill and intelligence of Heine throughout his life. Heine can be forgiven is the selection is thematically uneven, coming as they do from nearly three decades of his life. Each piece has its merits, though the whole falls shorter than sum of its parts.

The book opens with The Harz Journey, a piece that was written after a three week walking tour when he was twenty-seven. The Harz Journey is by far the most immediately enjoyable of the six pieces. It is witty and insightful, with clever jokes strewn throughout the text, as well as containing sharp observations on ordinary peasant and university life. The satire is never laugh-out-loud funny, rather it is more subtle. 'I was also much displeased to see that the multiplication table, which conflicts dangerously with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, was printed on the last page of the catechism, so that children could be led at an early age into sinful doubts.' The Harz Journey is a collection of loosely stitched together observations and vignettes, with Heine himself noting towards the end that, 'The Harz Journey is and remains a fragment...Individual works may remain fragments, so long as they form a whole when put together.' Inserted within the text are a few poems, which show that in his late twenties, Heine was already skilled with the pen.

Ideas: The Book of Le Grand is much less and much more cohesive. It is confusing and enthralling, a mash of concepts, fragments and ideas which seem to have little in common, though careful rereading shows strong thematic development and continuity. Though the individual snippets - and even the whole, at times - could be taken as dream-like, ephemeral, consisting of the fancies of thought rather than the concreteness of visual description and plot, there is a consistency of expression and strength of intelligence that binds the work together. Ideas can be read as autobiographical in parts, but it can easily be enjoyed as fragments of thought that come together to create a cracked portrait of a man - dare we say Heine? The references are there, of course, but to confuse content with intent would be foolish. 'In all the preceding chapters there is not a single line that is not strictly relevant; I write concisely, avoiding everything superfluous, indeed I often miss out on essential matters' - are we to take this seriously? Yes and no, for then Heine goes on to lament his horrible lack of intellectual quotations in the text, for as everyone knows, a piece is only clever if it refers to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Heine's bite is sharp.

The Town of Lucca was, for me, the weakest piece of the book. The writing was clever - though not funny as before, - the imagery was evocative - though not as appealing as The Harz Journey. In short, The Town of Lucca is interesting, and even worthwhile, but coming after the first two pieces, it falls flat. In a similar vein, Differing Conceptions of History is very short, a mere two pages long, so it is difficult to comment on its quality.

On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany is very interesting, for the scholar of philosophy and the layman alike. Heine was writing this piece for his French readers, and it is assumed that they have limited knowledge of Germany's history or philosophy. As such, we have a light, popular-minded piece which aims to give an overview, rather than a detailed criticism, of the major themes of philosophy in Germany. Which is quite welcome, all things considered. Heine, the introduction informs us, was aware of Germany's philosophical progress, but he was not a philosophy professor. As such, his depth of knowledge is small, though his intelligence and wit make up for this deficiency. This piece should be considered as a sturdy starting point for the interested reader, as well as an interesting essay from one of the foremost voices in nineteenth century Germanic literature. Heine gives a lengthy description to goblins and other mythological figures, but he also devotes much time and space to Kant, Luther, Judaism and finally, Hegel. He states that 'all these stories illustrate the beliefs and character of the German people', which goes a long way to understanding what it was Heine was attempting to achieve with this piece. His readers, all French, were as Heine's students, learning the basics of a people in whom he firmly loved, no matter how sharp his criticism became.

The final piece is an unfinished Memoirs. There is too little of this to make an accurate judgement, dangling as it does many unfinished threads and broken thoughts. What is there is admirable and entertaining, but it could have been so much more. Heine, in the last eight years of his life, was bedridden and very sick, which perhaps explains the unfinished aspect of the piece. It is a shame, really, that we are given only forty-odd pages of Memoirs, which serve more as an introduction to the themes he wished to present, than an autobiography of Heine. There are details of his extended family - including a rather humorous look at his mother - but little on the man himself.

The Harz Journey and Selected Prose is not cohesive as an overall text, but nor is it meant to be. Rather, it shows a wide spread of Heine's literary talent in prose, virtually ignoring his verse output, which was ample, lasting and profound, both in influence and artistry. What other prose pieces of Heine's remain to be read is unclear, as the majority of his prose works are difficult to find in English translation or, where they can be found, are often of low quality - so sayeth the translator of this book. Recommended highest of all for The Harz Journey, but also worthwhile for the curious snippets of memoir, history and sprawling Ideas, The Harz Journey and Selected Prose is perhaps overall recommended for keen readers interested in studying one of the masters of German literature.

This is the fourth book in the Henry Reed series.

In this book, Henry Reed returns to rural New Jersey for his third summer with his aunt and uncle. Each summer, Henry and his friend and partner-in-chicanery, Midge Glass, embark on a business scheme that results in humorous twists and moderately successful outcomes.

This summer, Henry and Midge want to produce some sort of entertainment show, but when a music festival and medieval tournament prove to have insurmountable obstacles, they settle on a rodeo. New Jersey being fresh out of stallions and bulls, they improvise and settle on sheep-roping and Sardinian donkey-riding. As always, there is an unexpected funny disaster, but a happy outcome.

Like the previous three books, Henry Reed's Big Show is entertaining and completely G-rated. The writing is compelling and through Henry, who lives overseas during the school year, the author passes along obscure facts about the world interesting to children and adults alike.

The downside, unfortunately, is these stories occur in a world that no longer exists. I grew up in an area of New Jersey close to the fictional Grovers Corner in which these books are based, and the rural idyll is long-gone, replaced by shopping malls and developments of McMansions. Similarly, it is hard to imagine today's young teens relating to the two characters whose activities, while hair-brained, are squeaky-clean and occuring without the presence of TV, the Internet, etc.

I highly recommend this and the other Henry Reed books in the series to children aged 10 and up. There is no objectionable material for a parent to be concerned about, but the cultural world in which the story is set may cause confusion.

This is a reprint of an edition of William Robertson's "History of the Reign of Charles V" published in 1857. This edition was the first to include William Prescott's "Life of Charles V after His Abdication", which had been written especially for it the previous year.

My problem with this reprint is that it is so smudgy in some places that one has to guess at a few of the words. Also instead of page 566, page 556 appears a second time. Not okay, to charge money for a book with missing pages and indecipherable words.

As for Robertson's book itself, I found it surprisingly readable and absorbing, considering that it was first published in 1769 and has been out of print for well over a century. However, as with a lot of eighteenth century historians, there are no attempts to imaginatively place the reader in the scene of action; also, one sometimes feels that the full dramatic potential of the events narrated hasn't been exploited by the writer. (Maybe this is another way of saying that readers of Robertson's time brought a different set of expectations to a book of history than we do today.) Perhaps as a result, I found that I retained much less of what I read than one would reasonably expect.

One could read Robertson together with Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" to bring into sharper focus what was truly distinctive about Gibbon, rather than the natural consequence of being a literate, talented 18th century writer in English with an historical bent. Often Robertson's "Charles the Fifth" reads like what the "Decline and Fall" would have been had Gibbon not been the genius that he was. Compare, for example, Gibbon's account of the sack of Rome by Alaric's Goths in 410 with Robertson's of the sack of Rome by the Duke of Bourbon in 1527.

This book is quite a bit different from most books which cover the pre-war years of the Nazi regime. It focuses mostly on foreign policy, particularly after 1935. It is a short book, and it should not be read as a general history of the pre-war years. There is a lot of information in this book, but only a full understanding can be obtained after already knowing at least a general history of 1933-1939. Major events are glossed over, and only the foreign policy aspect is covered.

It seems to be a well-researched book, but some of it may be out of date, because this book was written in the late 1960s. But most of the information is simple stuff, and few new conclusions have been drawn in most of the areas the book covers since it was written. Some of the sources are not divulged because the sources used were not yet released to the public by the governments holding the records. This means that you have to pretty much trust the author, but it seems that everything is in order, because the documents have since been released.

This book is meant for those who want a more indepth knowledge of the foreign policy applied by Adolf Hitler before the war. If you are looking for a book about war, or any sort of general history, this book is not for you. It is a scholarly book for those who are looking for a specific knowledge of these crucial years.

I bought my copy of this book at a bookstore in Brussells while visiting the headquarters of the European Union.

For Americans who are only familiar with the US Constitution, and State laws, reading the actual text of the European Convention on Human Rights can be an eye opening experience.

This book contains a short history of the European Convention on Human Rights and also contains the complete text of the treaty with explanations.

Also useful is a chart which shows which countries have ratified each of the amending protocols to the treaty.

Definitely not light reading.

Although this book was very thourough, concise, and well-researched, they managed to bore me completely with a topic I usually find fascinating. Do not buy this book for interesting reading; it is useful as a reference only.

This book is a nice supplement to learning/practicing interpersonal psychotherapy. It's an easy read.

I used this text during a course on Fire Prevention. This field was new to me but Robertson's text made this course easy to understand. Covers many aspects of Fire Prevention.