Windsor Books

One inaccuracy that I caught in this book (stating that hashish comes from poppies in Afghanistan) made me wonder what other inaccuracies existed in this book. Despite that, this is an entertaining tale that has proved to be decided prescient in what good and bad could come from a liberalized leadership in USSR. The book used a military coup rather than political change to get this change, but the rest is right on.

Never before have I read a spy novel with such political and human depth.The themes and ideas are universal and celebrate the triumphant spirit of mankind that makes freedom always triumph over tyranny.I wrote down quotes from the book and have kept them forever.A must for all lovers of intrigue about events that could have come to pass if it had not been for the foresight of Mikhail Gorbachev.Of course all the other elements of a succesful spy novel are there:adventure,intrigue,action and excitement

This is an excellent novel set in the late stage of the Cold War. It essentially paints a very plausible scenario (that turned out wrong, as it happens) of how the old USSR might have changed governmental systems.

The novel is centered around a Soviet GRU agent stationed in the United States ("Sasha"). Sasha has an agenda, even as he becomes a competent agent working for the Soviet regime as an intelligence officer in the United States. The novel crackles with authenticity. Moss plainly did his homework, and draws heavily on other works including the well-known "Inside the GRU" by Victor Suvorov. The writing is excellent, the storyline moves briskly, and the key characters have depth and plausibility.

This is one of my favorite spy novels and remains so, even if it is the case that the old USSR imploded under a scenario somewhat different than that set forth here. Moss's speculation along these lines was intelligent and insightful, and better than most.

Overall, a great read and an intelligent look at international espionage in the context of the bad old days of the Cold War.

Great book, it is not often that an author can come up with such a comprehensive book as this on his first try. This had it all, a great story, good characters, wonderful action and a quick pace. This is an exciting book. It really made me happy reading the book; it was like a great game of treasure hunt where you find everything. Each time I was ready for a plot twist, action of drama it was there. The characters just explode in your memory - you do not get them out of your head. Overall great effort.

Never before have I read a spy novel with such political and human depth. The themes and ideas are universal, and celebrate the triumphant spirit of mankind, that makes freedom always triumph over tyranny. I wrote down quotes from the book and have kept them forever. A must read for all lovers of intrigue, about events that could have come to pass, if it had not been for the foresight of Mikhail Gorbachev. Of course all the other elements of a successful spy novel are there: adventure, intrigue, action and excitement .

The Officer's ward. Moved me like no other book has ever moved me before.

It is one of those books, that once you start reading it you can not put it down. I am a reader that tends to have a few books running at once and it can take me weeks to finish them. This book I read in two days.

The strength of human spirit shines in this book.

If you only read one book in your life this is the book to read. The regretful thing is, that after this book all other books pale into insignificance.

This book is a perfect little gem.
A book complete and very alive in the writing.
Bravo.Look foreward to read his second novel.This being his first, we have wonders to look foreward to.Thank you.

Perhaps the tragedies, the horrors, and the heroics of World War I have been
chronicled over and over, but perhaps, still, not often enough. In Marc Dugain's first
novel "The Officers' Ward," the French-born author has furnished yet another story (and
lesson) from the "War to end all Wars."

To say it was "the worst of times" would be an understatement and young
Lieutenant Adrien Fournier finds himself an early casualty of the German onslaught. He's
devastatingly wounded--much of his face is blown away--and he's transported to Paris to
await recovery and rehabilation for the rest of the war, some five years or so. A bright
young man (an engineer by education), and handsome, he must now face a future
grotesquely disfigured and to a whole where self pity, even repulsion, await him. He
forms a long-standing bond with three others who've suffered similar injuries. It is a time
for them all to come to grips with their own mortality.

But Fournier is no lightweight and sets about facing his own destiny. His time in
hospital--in a special ward for soldiers with such facial injuries--serves as the basis of his
own positive perception of the world to come. It's not an easy ride for him.

The general idea for this story comes from Dugain's own grandfather, himself a
veteran of The Great War. "The Officers' Ward" was honored with France's Prix des
Libraires, and was on the short-list for the Grand Prix of the Académie Française.
Dugain's power of description and episode is a depressingly tragic view of such a
senseless war, yet these tragic elements are somehow overshadowed by the hope and the
will of the human spirit to rise above the personal pitfalls and to function positively within
the confines of a civilized society. But most importantly it is within the confines of his own
self-image that Lieutenant Fournier prevails. Dugain deserves his accolades.
(...)

every once in a while, a book pops up that really succeeds in almost every way imaginable...that is, capturing the imagination, feeling empathy with/for the characters and then simply getting so involved with the story that nothing else exists except the written word...The Officers'Ward is one of these jewels...the lovely thing about it is that it may be read in one sitting and even though the story is quite tragic, there is a certain slant of optimism that keeps the story alive. a simple, elegant story...i highly recommend.

Based on the experiences of his grandfather in WWI, Marc Dugain writes beautifully about a hospital ward of soldiers recovering--if that can be done--from severe facial injuries. The Officers Ward is a powerful account of what it means to go to war and to have oneself disfigured and, perhaps, left literally speechless. The characters make the reader uncomfortable and make each other uncomfortable, as the story explores what men can and cannot share with each other. These soldiers, including the main character Adrien Fournier, talk of their own pain and of women and of the men still in the trenches. This story is especially powerful because the men who fought WWI are largely gone--it's a history that cannot be lost to new generations. Now that it's available in paperback, I'm doubly recommending this short novel to friends.

If you're interested in short novels, you might also consider Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine, a story about a Japanese-American family during WWII. Other good, short novels include Bill Grattan's Ghost Runners (think baseball), Jane Smiley's Ordinary Love & Good Will (think Midwest), Neal Bowers' Loose Ends (think Tennessee funeral), and Helen Humphreys' Afterimage (think 19th-century photographer).

Despite another reviewer's rather too exacting and, to my mind, strained equation of this novel with The Tempest, with Daphne or Janet Frame as Prospero, I think the true place to look for such complete comparison is in John Fowles's The Magus and in various works of Iris Murdoch. For Daphne is much more Ariel than Prospero, as the title and quote at the beginning should more than slightly hint.

Ariel's songs have long been an inspiration to poets and poetic writers (Shelley and John Clare come to mind)for their inspired linguistic beauty and magical quality. The sense one gets from all these writers is that the "normal" way of seeing things is not quite spot on, that there is a magic, delightful and disturbing, by turns, undercurrent to our quotidian perceptions.

Janet Frame, in this book, manages to lyrically, poetically convey that Ariel-inspired sense better than anyone in any novel I've yet to read.

Yes, the hospital setting and what not is harrowing. But Daphne's description of her stay there is deep and magical and wonderful....So is the rest of the book.....Buy it this summer, "merrily", as Ariel would have it.

This novel follows a linear time scale of the growth in a family's generation with occasional shifts backward or forward to comment on the present. It focuses on the intense emotions of its characters through a detailed focus on objects and the character's speech. There are eloquent descriptions of clothing, the setting of their hometown and even the rubbish in the junkyard the children play in. The most striking part of the book is the long sections narrated from the third person singular perspective of Daphne who spends a good part of her life in a mental institution. These sections are highly poetic and suggest the other language with which people who are mentally think by seeing the world not as reality but as a clutter of subconscious and symbolic images. This, in contrast with the long diary entries of Daphne's sister Teresa (Chicks) who lives in a conventional domestic style maps the different patterns by which people think and reminds you that the world can be perceived in a multitude of different ways. Through poignant metaphorical descriptions and sharp dialogue she conveys what is missing in human relations, especially between family members. There is a delicately portrayed need for genuine respect of the individuality of the children apart from the fixed images acquired in childhood. People change; identity is fluid. When an image of them is maintained or they are held up to an ideal (like the Bessicks who turn out not to be so ideal) then a connection is lost and the individual is left isolated. They become a stranger. This is emphasised in the epilogue where a socially prominent couple discuss articles in a newspaper who they know nothing about but are characters we have become intimately involved with over the course of the novel. It is a beautiful, intimate and heartbreaking portrayal of a family.

In a career spanning over forty years, Frame created such successful works as The Lagoon, Scented Gardens for the Blind, Owls do Cry and To the Is-Land. As a gifted wordsmith and an acute observer of life hungry to express herself, it was no surprise that she chose to write about her own remarkable life. With her autobiography, An Angel At My Table, her unique artistry and strength was only further in evidence, as she managed to turn seven years of a harrowing, personal nightmare into a work of beauty, compassion and subtle humor.

While a young student at university, "[H]er shyness and insecurity made her 'different' and this, coupled with a clumsy suicide attempt, led to the first of her incarcerations in a mental hospital."

Originally diagnosed as suffering from "schizophrenia," Frame wrote about her experience: "The six weeks I spent at Seacliff Hospital in a world I'd never... thought possible, became for me a concentrated course in the horrors of insanity.... From my first moment there I knew that I could not turn back to my usual life or forget what I saw.... Many patients confined in other wards... had no name, only a nickname, no past, no future, only an imprisoned Now, an eternal Is-Land without its accompanying horizons...."

The nightmare continued with her introduction to electroshock. "I was given the new electric treatment, and suddenly my life was thrown out of focus. I could not remember. I was terrified. I behaved as others around me behaved. I who had learned the language, spoke and acted that language. I felt utterly alone. There was no one to talk to... you were locked up, you did as you were told or else, and that was that... I was 'there for life.'" The treatment left her "in terror and despair equivalent to an execution."

Throughout her writing Frame creates passages that are powerfully evocative of the terror experienced when one's mind is meddled with by a force over which one has no control. Her writings are have some distinct similarities with Shakespeare's "The Tempest": Prospero meddles with the subconscious minds of those shipwrecked on his island. When they are regaining consciousness, he says: Their understanding Begins to swell, and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shore, That now lies foul and muddy. (V.i.70-82) That a storm has been induced in the minds of Prospero's foes is evident because their "reasonable shores" are "foul and muddy". Ariel, at Prospero's command, has lured Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio to a banquet only to confront them with thunder and lightning and the pronouncement of their mutual guilt in having banished Prospero from Milan. Ariel says, "I have made you mad" (III.iii.59), but her action is not the equivalent of inducing an epileptic fin in the minds of these men. Gonzalo says, "All three of them are desperate; their great guilt,/Like poison given to work a great time after,/ Now gins to bite the spirits" (III.iii.104-06). It is the consciences of the three men that are activated by Ariel's enactment of Prospero's plan. Prospero is ever careful to avoid harming those upon whom he exercises his power. He boasts to Miranda that he has not harmed one hair on any of the creatures upon whom he has worked his magic (I.ii.30-31). Frame does not, however, have such benevolent or skilled workers delving into her subconscious mind. Her storms are electrical convulsions of the most uncontrolled kind.

Frame's bewilderment at finding herself mistakenly diagnosed with schizophrenia resounds in the passage from The Tempest (I.ii.206-10) which stands as an epigraph to An Angel at My Table:

Prospero: My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason? Ariel: Not a soul, But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd Some tricks of desperation.

In this passage Prospero is asking Ariel which of the mariners had been able to resist Ariel's performance of his magic. Ariel's reply indicates that none could help by be affected by her sport.3 Frame's use of the passage, however, seems to suggest that even the bravest, firmest, most constant of human beings, including Prospero, herself or the reader, might find their spirit (or mind) infected by "a fever of the mad", and that Frame's "tricks of desperation" in having role-played text-book schizophrenia to gain attention have been such a success that the medical profession has been duped. When Frame was diagnosed as having schizophrenia, she says, "I kept 'pure schizophrenia' for the poems where it was most at home, and I looked forward to John Forrest's praise" (Angel 79). In keeping "pure schizophrenia" for her poetry, Frame was using language to create a storm, rather than to construct a 'realistic' narrative. Much of Daphne's singing in Owls Do Cry is an example of this technique.4

In creating storm by using poetry, Frame is emulating Prospero who is able to conjure up tempests by using his magic art. It is ironic that Frame's incorrect diagnosis and subsequent hospitalisation were preceded by attention from her psychology lecturer, who almost coaxed the young woman into believing that madness and genius were inseparable and that schizophrenia was an asset to the serious poet. Forrest made a remark of which Frame writes,

[The comment] was to direct my behaviour and reason for many years. ... "When I think of you," he said, "I think of Van Gogh, of Hugo Wolf, [of Schumann]." (*) All three were named as schizophrenic, with their artistic ability apparently the pearl of their schizophrenia. Frame blends the past and present well in her story.

It's interesting to note that despite the good intensions of her family members, tragic stuck mercilessly.

Owls Do Cry, Frame's first full-fledged novel, is a poetic anthem to human spirit and endurance and speaks ultimately to universal concerns. A remarkable novel from a gifted artist.

So much better than other 'madhouse' books - knocks The Bell Jar into a distant corner, Janet Frame is one of the most poignant and moving of writers. She was so injured by life but is able to achieve an extraordinary almost clinical separation in her literary creations when writing of things that should have been too great to bear. I have to be feeling very strong to take her in. An Angel at My Table brought her to the fore for a while, but she has never really occupied the place she deserves in the front of people's minds. Time for a big rediscovery I'd say. But when you look at the sales ranking her titles gain, the probability is slim. Shame. Come on literary public, give her a go - come on her publishers push those books back onto the shelves.

A Sea of Troubles takes place on the island of Pellestrina, one of the 2 barrier islands that enclose the lagoon of Venice. Two fishermen are murdered and their boat blown up, and none of the residents will give any information to the police. Signorina Elettra Zorzi has a cousin on the island and visits every summer, so she volunteers, against Brunetti's wishes, to go to the island to see if she can find out anything.

The investigation reveals that clamming in the Venice lagoon is lucrative, and that clammers incur the hatred of other fisherman, because they dredge the bottom leaving nothing behind. And we learn also about the poisons pumped into the lagoon, and the clam beds, by the refineries and factories at Marghera.

This is one of the weaker of the Brunetti series. Leon tried to fill out the character of Elettra by taking her outside the office environment, but it just didn't work well.

For those of us who have read all the other books in the series, this one was interesting and not at all bad. For someone just starting the series, I would put this one low on the priority list.

Leon's detective, Commissario Brunetti is a cultured Venetian, much given to pondering the mysteries of life, and engaging with his equally urbane literature professor wife.
Each book in the series, as well as providing a well-plotted mystery, advances the relationships between the recurring cast. Particularly attractive is the rather enigmatic Signorina Elettra, for whom Brunetti holds an (always gentlemanly) candle!

I found this story really interesting, set as it is on one of the outer islands of Venice, away from the usual tourist haunts.

This series of mysteries by Donna Leon features a clever detective and a setting in Venice. Leon has lived abroad for years but she is from New Jersey and she is bright. I've read few mysteries prior to discovering this series, now I can't find enough of them to read. (I wish I still had my bookstore in order to direct readers to these!) To keep a loyal following a series must be fresh, entertaining and must feature an admirable character...Guido Brunetti fits the bill! His wife is a professor and his children act like teenagers (in Italy). The setting is fascinating. I've never seen Venice but it is great fun to read about as Guido pursues the murderer through the city. Please, Amazon, get them here faster!

A Sea of Troubles is a pleasant change in the Guido Brunetti series. Although Venice is surrounded (and almost inundated by) the sea, there's often little sense of that element in the earlier stories except in recounting the need to take a boat or vaporetto to get somewhere. In this book, we learn about fishing and its challenges (for fisherman and those who eat their catch) as Donna Leon takes us southwest of Venice to the long, thin island of Pellestrina.

The opening of the book contains an excellent map of Venice and its lagoon that covers an area of about 40 by 25 kilometers. Stick a book mark into where that map is: You'll be referring to the map often.

A fire breaks out on a fishing boat docked on Pellestrina. Soon, the whole harbor is filled with fishermen seeking to save their boats. After things settle down, someone notices that two fishermen are missing.

Before long, the various police bureaucracies are vying to get rid of the case. Commissario Guido Brunetti is the lucky winner and finds himself up against a town that doesn't talk to outsiders . . . and certainly not to Venetian policemen.

While seeking to learn more about what happened, Signorina Elletra Zorzi decides she would like to play undercover detective by spending a few days with her cousin on Pellestrina. Who knows? Perhaps someone will tell her something.

Guido is very opposed but knows he cannot sway Signorina Elletra. However, he can try to protect her. Even Paolo begins to notice that Guido is obsessed. Could it be that his feelings for Signorina Elletra are more than what they seem?

As usual, back channels begin to provide the information that reveals who had the motive for crime. With that knowledge, Brunetti knows that he's got a dangerous task ahead.

I cannot remember reading another book by Donna Leon that is as well steeped in local geography and conditions as A Sea of Troubles is. It makes for a compelling story.

I also liked the way Ms. Leon changed the focus of an investigation to put Signorina Elletra into a role other than as computer hacker and lover of flowers and fine clothes.

The plot also successfully triangulates the themes of private and public corruption that abound in this series with family ties and personal friendships. In that context, Ms. Leon asks a very fundamental question that will intrigue you: How well do we know anyone else?

Have a great trip to Pellestrina!

And be careful where you get your clams.

Donna Leon simply is a mesmerizing writer. No other author--and some do come
close--approaches her today in terms of suspense, characterization, plot
development, and social significance. In "Sea of Troubles," she continues her
exceptional level of excellence. I could hardly wait for this edition (it's not available
for some incredible reason in the States!)to arrive.

Guido Brunetti has his hands full, once more. Two men (a father and his son) are
found murdered in a sunken fishing boat in the waters off Pelligrina. However, the
villagers close ranks and are in no hurry to cooperate with the police. Enjoining the
services of Signorina Ellatra, Brunetti begins a painful, plodding investigation.
With this type of story, Leon is quite good--and she never lets up on the
environmental issues ("Don't eat the shellfish!").

Her murderers don't come as surprises in the final pages, as Leon doesn't use this
device; instead, she depends upon the brilliant thinking of Brunetti and his team to
bring the guilty, whom we know early enough, to bear. This is not to say that "Sea
of Troubles" doesn't contain great suspense--it does. And Leon, who clearly is in
love with Venice, captains this book in the best of traditions. Lucky she has Guido
Brunetti and his staff and family as crew members. Don't miss this one! (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

Sorrell and Son is a beautiful story of the love and commitment of a father to his son. Returning to civilian life in England after fighting in World War I as an officer and being decorated for bravery, he comes home to find no place to fit in. His wife leaves him, he cannot find a job and raised as a gentleman has no marketable skills. The only thing that keeps him going is his twelve-year-old son who is utterly dependent on him.
The book spans the boy's youth and adulthood. It's a story of self-sacrifice and love and finding meaning in a harsh environment.
The only thing that bothered me in the first half was the author's negative portrayal of women in general but he made up for it in the end with his understanding of the young woman Sorrell's son falls in love with.
The author shows a sympathy for the limitations women faced at that time with only wife and motherhood their only real options. Sorrell's son has to nearly lose her, as well as his own life, to understand that she, too, deserves to find a fullfillment in her work.
Wonderfully told, really, really well-written.

This is a book to read over and again. The central theme has its Horatio Alger aspect in Sorrell's climb from adversity (failed marriage,underemployment), to affluence and success, through the combined forces of hard work and professionalism with a good dash of luck.

The secondary story is Sorrell's wonderful relationship with his son, and his strong but tender rearing and overseeing his of education in school and in life.

This book is a first rate read and a must addition to your library.

This intriguing story takes place in England in the early twentieth century. This book was about a man who devoted his life to making his son's life a success. So many deep intellectual questions are asked, but not necessarily answered about life, marriage,love, career and relationships between father and son, husband and wife, and life in general. Definetly food for thought. He wanted his son to be more than just a worker. He wanted him to be someone special. This story has a surprise and delightful ending.

Simply an outstanding story! An excellent book! Honor, duty, loyalty, beauty and truth - We could well use this book as a guideline for the values needed both now and into the 21st Century.

When I first began to read Sorrell and Son, I was prepared not to like the main characters because I felt that the excessive pride and snobbery was beyond that which I, a born American, was able to tolerate.

However, when Sorrell bows his neck to fate and takes the job of porter at a somewhat disreputable inn owned and run by a horrible sadistic woman in order to be able to make a living for his son, I was hooked.

Neither adversity nor hard-work is able to defeat Sorrell. His and his son's "job" is the preparation of Kit for a successful life. Nothing is too demeaning for Sorrell if it will help further the "job." Slowly but surely, Sorrell begins to be smiled upon by the gods and his situation in life improves until he is quite well-off and is able to send Kit to excellent schools and the obtain a Tutor who prepares him for University after Kit has decided that he wants to become a surgeon.

The son, Christopher, could well have become a spoiled self-serving little prig, but he did not. Instead, he grows up to be a strongly principled, intelligent, caring man. My, what a lucky boy he is to have a father like Sorrell, and, Sorrell, my, what lucky man he is to have a son like Kit! Even the fleshy, self-indulgent mother's reappearance with her Circe's charms to offer Kit after an absence of ten years is not enough to tempt him away from his "pater."

As a result of Sorrell's later success in life, Kit is not required to scrabble about hungrily trying to make a living while studying medicine and yet his physical ease neither softens him nor makes him any less intent on succeeding at the "job."

The ending, albeit a tear-jerker, is not in the slightest bit maudlin. Sorrell maintains his unflappable dignity until the very end.

I thought I was read all great writers for this misteries, crimes and all those, but Sanders has become one of my favourites ones (the first of course is Raymond Chandler). I'm going to read all his books!

All the other so-called mystery writers should read Sanders' Timothys as Bible, but should not read any of his McNallys

Our eponymous hero returns in this second installment of the Timothy Series.
In the first novella, Run, Sally, Run, Timothy Cone has been specifically recommended to determine where leaks in a company, Pistol and Burns, are coming from. A Case of the Shorts begins with the assassination of John Dempster, CEO of Dempster-Torrey. Haldering and Co. is retained, and Timothy is drafted to investigate why the company is a target for industrial sabotage. In the last novella, One From Column A, Chin Tung Lee, of the White Lotus label, assigns the investigative team to discover why anyone would speculate in such a conservative company. Oedipal lust to unbridled greed actuated by hatred are just a little of what we see in The Game.
As usual, Timothy Cone cracks the cases with confidence and exaggerated bravado, leveraging on the knowledge of financial specialists, and his bevy of police informants. The whole cast from the Files are back, with some chaps added to compensate for the diversity of the new clientele.
Most Sanders fans when reading about this shabby detective are apt to compare him unfavorably to the dapper McNally. They might just be mistaken. Actually, both characters do have their similarities: their snitches in the police department who believe in quid pro quo, their emphasis on appearances and location, as well as their queer relationships, and controlled humor.
Yet Cone has his strengths. Here,the bad guys are unafraid to get their hands dirty; also, as each client is referred to Haldering and Co., there is a certain a continuity along stories. Moreover, since the focus is on financial institutions, a virgin forest in investigative fiction, we get to read a lot about the unheralded SEC.
In Timothy's Game, Lawrence Sanders delivers sizzling stuff that should be enjoyed in it's own right.

This book is actually a collection of three stories about Wall Street investigator Timothy Cone. Originally issued in 1988, it was written when Lawrence Sanders was at the peak of his writing career (before he started insulting his fans by cranking out pot boilers). The stories concern various intrigues on Wall Street - insider trading, stock manipulation and short selling, and corporate takeovers and greenmail. The plots are well developed and well written, and the characters are interesting.

The best Lawrence Sanders I've read so far. Timothy is an engaging character, and I think that's why I enjoyed the book so much

I can't remember ever reading anything quite as compelling. I'm not going blind nor do I have any cognitive disabilities. However, if you are a practicing meditator as I am and are interested in the nature of consciousness itself, you will be quite intrigued with this highly descriptive account of both the visual and non-visual aspects of perception. If this book doesn't inspire you to start thinking outside the box, nothing will. That been said, the average reader will find this to be an unforgettable, beautifully written book well worth reading. Highly recommended.

In place of the word "unsentimental" often used to describe this book I'd use "Lynchian", as in David. Blindness is just the starting-off point: The book is really a luxuriant journey into the *other* four senses and the heightened reality one begins to feel -- for instance how the white noise of a sudden rain can throw your outdoor echolocation into turmoil and immobilize you at some random place. With all respect to anyone looking for a good book on the disability, this one is for the artists.

On the front cover Oliver Sacks is quoted: "Staggering. . . the most extraordinary, precise, deep, and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read." But this book is primarily a message of facing change and developing methods for coping. Of compensating, of reaching out, of accepting your plight and going forward. You sense the author's despair and frustration, but he manages to see his difficulties as challenges. He engages you in the struggles he faces and overcomes. After all, he has a wife and four children, he lectures and attends conferences. Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of all, for me, was how he faced giving a lecture when he could no longer read notes. He eventually learned how to write his speech in his mind so that he could simply read one page as the next ones were being formulated. I pictured it as something like the beginning of a Star Wars movie. John Hull has somelthing to teach us all.

Heard the taped version of TOUCHING THE ROCK by John
Hull, a moving memoir of a university lecturer who slowly
lost his vision over a period of several years . . . he recorded
his thoughts in a diary, and I must admit to being touched
about how both he and his family dealt with his
condition . . . even typing this brings teary thoughts to
mind . . . imagine having seen a child as a youngster,
then not being able to see her again as she grows up . . . or
never having seen another child from the time he was
born . . . it makes me want to hug my daughter, Risa . . . and
to appreciate all that I do have!

This book was given to me as a gift a few years ago, and while I am neither going blind nor am actually blind, I found many of the ideas and experiences and thoughts and feelings expressed in this book to be very similar to my own. I have some particular cognitive difficulties (prosopagnosia, often called "face blindness") which give me a rather different outlook on life from most people, and I was amazed to see just how much in common my outlook on life was when compared with the author's life experiences. Well, maybe I wasn't that surprized, but it was still an eye-opening (no pun intended) experience for me to read this book in that context.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this book very very much. It reads more like a personal journal or diary than an actual book, and that gives the whole book a very personal experience when reading it.

This gorgeous novel reflects many of the ideas found in "A Room Of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf, with whom Vita had a famous affair. After the death of her husband, the Earl of Slane, Lady Slane shocks her staid family by asserting her own will, leaving the house she kept with her husband, and settling into a small house in the countryside. Finally after seventy years, Lady Slane is determined to live as she chooses, with a life full of contemplation, dreams, and memories. She reflects on her lost ambition to be a painter, but knows that the life she lived was not without merit or value. She finds passion in the freedom to choose, and this gift she bequeaths to the one member of her family who understands its importance.

I meandered my way to this book through Sarah Ban Breathnach's treasure of self-excavation, Simple Abundance. I had read Anne Morrow Lindbergh because of her recommendation too. AML & Charles Lindbergh were good friends with Vita Sackville-West & her husband, Nigel Nicholson. So I finally got around to Vita Sackville-West & this book. It was so moving, wonderful, unforgettable, that I will reread it. I laughed & cried. I will try to find older copies of this to give away to dear friends, old & new. It's one of those books. I'm 41 & have sacrificed much for the men & children in my life that I nonetheless love so dearly. This book helped me bring those feelings of ambivalence into focus. It also helped me realize I'm relatively young & still have time to live the life I've dreamed of since I was a little girl. Maybe this "child-bearing years" thing was just a detour.

This curiously overlooked novel was revived by a Masterpiece Theater production starring Dame Wendy Hiller, which like this novel was superb. The gentle story of an elderly woman's retirement while her forceful children squabble over unimportant matters is at once comic and poignant. The author has peppered the tale with curious, memorable characters, among them the eccentric art collector who is allowed to eat in portrait galleries because museums hope he will donate to them when he dies; the benign landlord Bucktrout, who sees Lady Slain's desire for peace at home; and the coffin maker who pictures people dead to reveal their true characters. This fine little masterpiece deserves to be read today.

How effortlessly Ms. Sackville-West spins her surprisingly moving story of an aging aristocrat who, near the end of her life, decides to do those things she could never do before as she sublimated herself to her strong, successful and controlling husband. This classic British diplomat, who expected to be obeyed because such were the times, was, after all, so much more important than she was and what an interesting life she had in his shadow, didn't she - so conscientious and such a good wife and mother. What she does when he dies, how she perceives her existence and her place in her family - and how they respond - will catch you up in its wake and carry you to the ending, which is perfect and thus bittersweet. I found this a memorable novella.

This book is a great diversion! There are times that I don't care to have a learning experience, I just want to escape and be entertained. For that purpose, this is a delightful story.

It is fiction based on real people from a very real era; the golden age of opera! Even if you don't care for opera or have any knowledge of the personalities in this story, you will still find this an engaging piece.
After all; everybody loves a good mystery!

This book is the first in a series of stories set in and about the Metropolitan Opera of the early 20th Century. Although the murder mystery itself is fictitious, as are therefore the parts played in it by actual, famous personalities, the real people portrayed here emerge very vividly. Caruso, Toscanini, Destinn and Puccini all seem true to life as entertainingly and carefully drawn by Ms Paul.

It is a pity that these attractive stories seem to be available now only as second hand books. As one reviewer has suggested reissues probably would be welcomed by many potential readers. The three stories of Ms Paul of the team of Met detectives, led by Caruso, indeed seem likely to provide a basis for a most entertaining television mini series, or perhaps even for feature films.

Only one review of this marvelous little book? Perhaps because it is out of print. If you are not overly familiar with the "Golden Age of Opera," as I wasn't when I first read the book, you will find the discovery of whodonnit challenging, but much delight is found just in the reading. The characters, from what I have since learned, appear to be very well drawn, and the writing is of the quality you would expect from Barbara Paul. Her second foray into this genre, "A Chorus of Detectives," follows Caruso with some additional characters as they solve another mystery. Just great fun. (And, if you are familiar with the opera world of the early 20th century, you may enjoy the story even more!) Try to track down a copy of either book.

The book deals with Enrico Caruso, yes the most famous opera tenor, looking for a murderer. Ok, it is not really the Caruso you think of, when you hear him singing or you read his biographies. May be it has even nothing to do with the real Caruso beside that he loved to play pranks. But it is hilarious and the story funny. Caruso actually looking for a murderer and finding him more by chance than by combination. It is not as thrilling as a 007 and also not as sophisicated as Sherlock Holmes - it's just a funny crime story set in the opera world. Enjoy....

The Case of the Foot-Loose Doll, by Erle Stanley Gardner

This book is dedicated to Theodore J. Curphey, M.D., Coroner of Los Angeles County, who is trying to get legal medicine used properly. If autopsies do not use current scientific methods then crimes can escape detection, or innocent persons can be convicted of crimes they did not commit. Dr. Curphey formed the Institute of Legal Medicine to combin the medical schools, the law schools, and the police and sheriff's departments in a practical partnership.

This story is about Mildred Crest, whose world collapses when her boyfriend breaks their engagement, and confesses to embezzlement from the company they work for. Mildred goes for a ride, and picks up a hitchhiker. The car crashes and burns, but Mildred decides to assume the hitchhiker's identity - Fern Driscoll. She finds a new job and apartment, and lives a more reclusive life. But an insurance investigator shows up, and asks "Fern Driscoll" to write a statement about the accident. Mildred went from the frying pan into the fire! So now she consults with Perry Mason about a "personal matter". "Fern" tells about the crash from her point of view (Chapter Three); but Mason knows she didn't tell the whole truth. A stranger shows up, tells "Fern" a story, and Mildred confesses she isn't Fern! And this is just the beginning of this story. Then the insurance investigator is stabbed, and the police investigate this murder.

Circumstantial evidence is the best evidence, unless it is misinterpreted. Eyewitness evidence can be deadly and dangerous because there is often no corroboration for this testimony (Chapter Twelve). Whenever a person was unjustly convicted, it is usually on eyewitness evidence. Most people cannot recognize a stranger seen for a few seconds (Chapter Thirteen). Would a prosecution witness who testified falsely be liable for perjury (Chapter Fifteen)? [NO!] Chapter Seventeen has the last day of the preliminary hearing. Mason's cross-examination brings out the hidden facts that will clear his client. It wasn't just the ice picks that were duplicated! There is another shocking surprise, and a happy ending. Mildred Crest has all charges dismissed, current and potential. [Does part of this story remind you of "The Talented Mr. Ripley"?]

Mildred, a heart-broken girl, wants to run away from everything. When a hitchhiking girl killed herself, Mildred takes her identity to live a completely new life.

It is crazy to replace oneself with a complete stranger. It would be an artificial story if Mildred's despair were not convincingly described. And it would be tiresome if her misery were tediously described. Gardner describes her hopeless feeling concisely but convincingly. He is an excellent writer. No more explanation will be needed. Please enjoy how Mason brilliantly rescues Mildred from predicament.

This book is written in 1958. The general public is so strict to an unmarried pregnant woman that she will be driven to suicide. It is interesting how times has changed.

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970) wrote more than one hundred novels over the course of his long career. A trial lawyer himself, Gardner's best known creation was Perry Mason, a flamboyant criminal defense attorney who earns his large fees by virtue of a remarkable talent for using the law to uncover the truth on the witness stand.

Although Gardner's Perry Mason novels were formula, Gardner was at the peak of his powers during the 1950s--and at his best he was able to combine a twisty plot, impressive courtroom scenes, and his tendency to staccato dialogue to tremendous effect. Written in 1958, THE CASE OF THE FOOT-LOOSE DOLL offers Gardner at his best.

An attractive secretary in Oceanside, California, Mildred Crest is looking forward to her marriage to the town's most eligible bachelor--but is stunned when he abandons her under highly dubious circumstances. Dazed and distraught, she gets in her car and simply goes as far and as fast as she can... until an unforeseen accident offers her the opportunity to escape the past once and for all.

Or so it seems. But the past has a way of catching up with you--and in Mildred's case it isn't just her own past that she has to worry about. Before too long the question of murder arises, and Mildred finds herself in desperate need of legendary Los Angeles attorney Perry Mason.

Law, police procedure, and science has changed quite a bit since Gardner wrote this book, but that is part of the fun. And in this instance Gardner anticipates the modern phenomena of identity theft in a most unexpected way. Fans will enjoy it and newcomers will find it a delight. Recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This is my favorite Perry Mason Mystery. It has the feel of an Alfred Hitchcock mystery. A woman who is running away from life is in a one car accident in which her passenger, a hitchhiker, is killed and mutilated beyond recognition. So she begins a new life, assuming the identity of the hitchhiker. All goes well until an insurance adjuster figures out her secret and tries to blackmail her.