Shepard Books

Finally another book from William Shepard. I was not disappointed in this entertaining two part book. The first part is the real behind the scenes scoop on the dipomatic world. Then we get treated to another part of fiction about the diplomatic world. I wonder how much of it is actually fiction but not real stories made into fiction to protect the "not so innocent." I loved this book and like any great book was sorry when it ended.
I am hoping that we will be not have to wait much longer for another Robbie Cutler adventure.

Dorrie is the greatest picture book character ever. For nearly 30 years I've been checking the same copies of the Dorrie books out from my local library - and they're wonderful evry time. WHY ARE THEY MOSTLY OUT OF PRINT!!!???

This is simply the best collection of classic vampire series I have ever found. It has everything you can ask for: Beatiful romantic writing from the gothic era, Classic Vapire Stories, Angst, Homo-eroticism (back when it was taboo).

These stories are just great stories meant to catch the imagination without the tired angst and weary anger of anything written in the last 100 years. The vampires in these stories are not self-conscious consumers of pop culture, but damned souls doomed to a horrific existance, and still they remain romantic ideals.

I have had to purchse this book four times because every time I lend it out I can't pry it out of the hands of whomever I lent it to.

After borrowing this book from our local library each Spring, I decided The Easter Book is a keeper and needed to be added to our personal library. The poetry is marvelous, capturing the essence of the season perfectly.

My daughter Niamh (age 3) and I love sitting down to Eddie and His Teddy's adventures. All of the series have a fantastic rhyme which makes it as interesting for me as it is for Niamh. The story is as exiciting or as "settling" as the intonation of the reader so is suitable for bed time reading or sofa capers!!

An adaptation of a Middle Eastern folk legend, The Enchanted Storks relates the story of a wicked vizier who dupes the Calif into buying snuff boxes that turn the Calif and others into storks.

Who or what will it take to release them from this spell?

A great joy to be found in this book is in the illustrations, intricately rich they bespeak a Baghdad of long ago.

This book was a work in progress when Paul Shepard died. His wife and partner, Florence, worked to finalize it and bring it to publication. We all owe a debt of gratitude to her for that. Paul Shepard threw off ideas like sparks during his life and this last effort is just that; sparks of ideas which we can only regret will never see the full development of his other works. However, whether you are a fan (or foe) of Paul Shepard and his ideas, this book will not fail to challenge your thinking.

The book is a series of essays on a wide range of subjects, centered around Shepard's central thesis that human ecology was too centered on the 20th century, and not enough on the Pleistocene. I have all of Paul Shepard's books, but I often find myself returning to this one when I have a few moments to reflect. Try it, you will be rewarded.

[...] I would have paid the jacket price. The story is heart warming, and sweet. As a resident of a small mid-western town, I believe the story keenly reflects the type of people who live in this wonderful part of our country. If you're into gardening, or art, this is also a great book. I found it very inspiring.
The best part of finding this book was that my 16 month old son loves the pictures, and actually sits through the whole thing. For him, a pretty big accomplishment!

Retired diplomats, prime ministers, politicians and generals turned writers produce in their golden years credible pieces of literature. While their works generally focus on history, biography, politics, diplomacy and war, many write notable novels, stories, fiction and mystery. William S. Shepard, a retired senior diplomat and member of the American Foreign Service, earned his place in the last category of authors by publishing the second volume of stories close to his heart about the light and hilarious, as well the dark side of life of American diplomats serving their country abroad. And Shepard has a lot of fascinated experience to write from, having served in many countries in Europe and Asia. His first collection, entitled The Consular Tales, was published last year.
The present anthology gives us twenty enchanting stories with intricately developed plots which are drawing not only upon the best, honest and most endearing aspects of human nature but also upon professional jealousy, greed, envy and its other less attractive sides. They are told with vigor, imagination and superb sense for drama, suspense and timing. Here the author displays an array of literary ploys to achieve his desired effect with the skill and imagination of a seasoned novelist. He is best at giving a detailed description of real, plausible and imaginary circumstance and events which give his stories not only credibility but also dispense high drama to fire curiosity, imagination and suspense of his readers.
The story "The Old Master" amply displays all these ploys of the writer's art, who himself appears as Consul Gene Cranton. In a complicated yet intriguing plot an imposter, Anton Svoboda, claims that he is the legitimate owner of the Odalisque Rouge, a painting by Matisse, which he had spotted hanging on the wall in the residence of the American Ambassador Sulliwan in Budapest during his visit of the embassy. And given the writer's penchant for suspense and high drama the question of the ownership of this painting is not resolved until the very last page of this long story. Here a classical ploy is resorted to by introducing an entirely new character into the closing the scene of the plot, who resolves the ownership in favor of the Ambassador. And even Consul Craton is caught surprised. While his gift of intuition in judging character of people appears unerring in other stories of the anthology, he had misjudged Anton's character during his earlier encounter with in his office. This is how the mighty fall sometimes.
It is not surprising that one story of the anthology, the "Little Brown Jug", a title inspired by the Glenn Miller swing tune, won the Second Prize in Marry Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine Contest in 2000. Here Larry Carter, a jealous Economic Counselor at an embassy, picks an antique and fine- glazed jug for baking beans, as a send-off gift for the Deputy Chief of the Mission Trip Holland, to mark his promotion to the ambassadorial rank. Trip Holland, a New Englander, loves the Boston backed beans so much, and Shepard even gives a complete and true recipe for this tantalizing dish, that he lets the cook at his ambassadorial post in Brussels serve it to him at all times until he dies shortly after assuming the office. Carter's little brown jug was his ultimate revenge, as its fine glazing, lead based in the old days, was heavily toxic. This, and the receipt for the heavenly baked Boston beans, are the only true facts of this marvelous story.

Shepard writes not only for pleasure and to entertain a general reader with his stories of glamorous parties, receptions and other perks of diplomatic life, like tax free champaign, caviar and scotch. He also writes to inspire a new generation of young Americans, as a fire-tested old hand who had been "there", to join the Foreign Service for other goodies in that basket as well, like the drama, the adventure and the thrill of its all, so well lived through, enjoyed and depicted by him. Here the anthology of his tales will, undoubtedly, do its share.

This is a great animal adventure, I can't imagine why Catherall isn't more famous.

It's written from a third-person point of view, so Catherall doesn't attempt to make the cheetah or any of the other animals "talk" or have humanemotions. The way he narrates what's going on in their heads seems realistic, yet emotionally powerful - the cockiness of a little jungle cockerel evading the cheetah, her desperation as she's surrounded in the middle of a river by wild dogs (the "dhole" in Kipling's Jungle Book), the majesty of a sambar stag seconds before he's hunted.

The times with her human trainers, bracketing the jungle story, provide a brief but intriguing insight into the practice of hunting with trained cheetahs. The book ends with the resolution of her trainer's struggle between his love for her and his responsibility to his job.