Irish Books

This book tells the reader all he or she needs to know, and even some things they might not want to know about the food in the Georgian Royal Navy. In this highly detailed book, Ms. Macdonald traces the supply of food from sources to purchasing to consumption from the lower to the Captain. Included are charts of calories, vitamin content, recipes, conversion charts, etc., etc. The book is very readable and of use to the casual reader as well as the scholar. This is a permanent edition to my bookshelf.

Author Janet Macdonald writes an informative and in depth book about feeding English sailors in the early 19th century. Macdonald covers everything that made up the sailors diet, from hard tack (ships biscuit) to salted beef. She writes in detail for example how the hard tack was made, who made it, and how it was delivered, stored and dispensed on the ships. She covers the different subjects throughly and supports her writings with facts from many sources such as the Naval historical archives and log books to name a few sources.

This book is an interesting read for those who want to know about such a integral part of the English sailor's life!

In "Feeding Nelson's Navy", author Janet MacDonald has put together some remarkable research to lay waste the myths of shipboard feeding in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.

The British Navy, in the long struggle against Revolutionary and then Imperial France, kept tens of thousands of men at sea for months on end. Popular myth has them subsisting on rotten salted meat and weevily bread. MacDonald shows the sailor aboard the average British warship ate a sufficient and reasonably nutritious diet. Official rations were based on biscuit (pilot bread for today's readers), salt beef, salt pork, cheese, peas, oatmeal, and beer. These were the foods which kept best in a world without refrigeration or canning. Other foods were provided when available, and the British Navy lead the way in experimenting with dried vegetables, "portable" soups, and lemon juice to stave off nutritional diseases such as scurvy.

The British Navy's ability to supply its sailors with a good ration through years of war were thanks to the efforts of the Navy Board and its victualing system. MacDonald's description of its business techniques may be daunting for the reader, but the lesson is that the system was made to work, around the fleet and around the world, in a consistent manner. No other navy of the period enjoyed so much consistent success at sea.

Along with the details of the ration cycle and the mechanics of the supply system, MacDonald provides considerable insight into "messing" at sea, a vital and often unremarked portion of naval culture.

This book is very highly reccommended to students of the Nelsonian Navy and of the Napoleonic Wars. MacDonald has mined this particular academic niche to its reasonable limits.

Cervantes in "Don Quixote" lampoons the writers of chivalric romances for failing to address the mundane realities of life, chief among them being how their heroic knights errant managed to feed themselves. To a lesser degree, perhaps, the modern authors of nautical fiction likewise do not much address the question of how their seaborne heroes (and their crews) were fed, day in and day out. Undoubtedly this is partly because it is far more interesting to write about boarding an enemy frigate than boiling salt beef, but I suspect that it also has to do with the absence of readily available, reliable information about the subject. Now, Janet Macdonald has addressed this want of discussion with "Feeding Nelson's Navy: The True Story of Food at Sea in the Georgian Era". Coming from a background of writing about cookery, she has tackled the complex and surprisingly mysterious question of how in the world the Royal Navy fed itself during the classic Age of Fighting Sail. Although it might be thought that a matter of such obvious vital importance to maintaining a fighting fleet of tens of thousands of mariners would have been recorded officially in detail, in point of fact Macdonald has had to sift through obscure primary documents such as ships' logs, personal memoirs, and period letters to adequately explore how it was all done: from procuring the foodstuffs (and drink) in the first place, to storing them, getting them to the ships in port and at sea, storing the victuals aboard, preparing meals, and serving them to officer and crews. And even with such diligent research, she must resort to informed speculation to address some questions, such as just how a ship's cook kept separate the rations for the various messes and served them out in an efficient manner. The breadth of coverage is impressive: the Navy's Victualling Board administration, officially mandated rations and substitutes, typical recipes, shipboard organization, disease and vermin, the "hardware" of food preparation and consumption (stoves and dining implements), and surrounding social customs. For anyone interested in the real world of the Royal Navy behind the fiction Horatio Hornblowers and Jack Aubreys, "Feeding Nelson's Navy" is a revelation, dispelling old myths and offering new facts such as the caloric and vitamin content of the men's meals. Macdonald throughout her book illustrates the practicalities of the subject by citing numerous real-life incidents drawn from period documents.

"Old ploughsocks gorge the subsoil of each sense / And I am quickened with a redolence / Of the fundamental dark unblown rose." In the face of such mastery, we cannot comment or explicate, for fear of impertinence; we can only quote, and hope that something of the maker's joy communicates itself.

This was the third book of poetry that this reviewer purchased as a youth, the first two being Eliot's Four Quartets and Rimbaud's Illuminations. This book remains a favourite of ours, fifteen years after its purchase.

The Glanmore Sonnets occupy a central position in this slender but rich volume, as is fitting; it is perhaps Heaney's masterwork. The Elegy to Robert Lowell, the "welder of English" who composed "heart-hammering blank sonnets of love for Harriet and Lizzie" is also noteworthy.

There is much about the sectarian warfare of the troubled six counties of Northern Ireland, but like Dante (who appears via epigraph and translation in this book) Heane!y can transfigure the sins of his land into glorious language that is an exemplar of poetry's redemptive potentiality. "I think our very form is bound to change ... Unless forgiveness finds its nerve and voice."

There is much here about love, nuptial, natural, sexual. At the end of "The Guttural Muse," there is a couplet of exclusion from the joyful earthiness that the poet observes: "I felt like some old pike all badged with sores / Wanting to swim in touch with soft-mouthed life."

There is warfare and loss, violence and bliss, the joys of the flesh and the crucifixion of a country. But after reading the poems in FIELD WORK, the reader will doubtless share in Seamus Heaney's faith that "the end of art is peace."

This was my first exposure to Seamus Heaney and his work (other than seeing the portly fellow with his unkempt white hair walking purposefully around campus here in Cambridge.) It is still my favorite collection of his work. Like all previous reviewers, I will not critique any particular poem, but only give the volume what can be one of my highest forms of praise: The poems have such a resonance that they have stayed with me long after putting the book down. That is a rare feat, in any artistic genre.

With "Field Work" the metaphor of "digging" with which Seamus Heaney began his first volume of poetry ("Death of a Naturalist") has become a succinct and overarching symbol of his entire literary endeavour. In that poem "digging" comes to connote the agricultural roots of his childhood (and of the Irish people) but also the search for word-fodder that his poetry enacts. "Field Work" continues to explore these concerns in a powerful collection of poems. Here the deeply personal ("Glanmore Sonnets"), primarly poetic ("Elegy") and cautiously political ("Triptych", "The Toome Road") sit comfortably alongside one another. While Heaney (as the most famous voice in contemporary Irish literature) has been repeatedly criticised for his silence on the Ulster situation, this volume shows that (as in "North") he is able to deal with its complex issues without taking sides. Always his concern is for the impartial victim (the position he himself assumes, that of the "unmolested orchid" ["Triptych 1"]) and the place he or she occupies among the combatants. "Casualty" describes a friendly but laconic pub drinker (apolitical and an acquaintance of Heaney's) who was killed by the British for defying curfew. "Triptych 1" includes the description of "Two young men with rifles on the hill" - we do not know if they are Unionists or I.R.A., they are two sides of the same coin. Heaney's continual "digging" allows him to move beneath the emotive surface of events and to unearth their common history, culture, landscape, experience. In "Field Work" the very poetry with which Heaney draws these moments is itself a tool to pare bloody and partisan politics back to its single seed, the common root of the Irish field and furrow.

Seamus Heaney, in "Field Work" makes accessible what is best about poetry and, especially, modern Irish poetry. Heaney's impact on modern poetry will certainly extend on into the centuries as he lays down his words in beautiful rythmic language, a language forgotten by many contemporaries, but coming back with many new poets. Heaney's protrait of Irish life, the "troubles", and just his love of people and the land makes this a must read not only for those who love good poetry, but wish to understand the beauty, people, politics, and history of a great people to be free. Heaney writes no bad poems, remains accessible to the occasional reader, and offers more than enough solid food for the critic and student of poetics to keep all happy for long after the read.

When C. S. Lewis read "Phantastes" by George MacDonald he wrote that he encountered holiness. I read "Phantastes" and I agree, but I encountered holiness far more in FQ. I was blown away by the book. The language is archaic, but Maynard does a good job of footnoting the tough words and the hard to understand phrases. He encourages the reader to read FQ aloud and I agree. I have a tin ear for poetry, but even I caught the cadences occasionally and it helped.

Saint George or the Red Cross knight is a flawed character, but he is brave. He fails over and over again, but with fair Una's help, he keeps getting up until he finds grace. I don't catch all the symbolism in the allegory, but the allegorical elements energizes the narrative. I know there is much more going on than what is on the surface.

The author's notes are too cutsey at times, but he shares his enthusiasm with the reader. Maynard comes across as a friend who is encouraging you by saying, "Yep, you're right. This is really great. Are you having fun, yet?" Maynard is obviously a Christian who fundamentally agrees with Spenser on the important things, so Maynard's enthusiasm is real.

Holiness and goodness is palpable in the these pages. It is a life-changing experience. The book is full of gory battles. The battle is real and there are casualties.

Roy Maynard ought to be commended for aiding us in reading Spenser. Personally, I think Spenser tells a better yarn than Shakespeare, with all due respect to the Bard. This book was written by a Christian, with powerful Christian overtones, and Christians will benefit the most from it. The language is archaic, the story is...well...schockingly relevant.

I said in the title that the book is transcendental. What I mean is the book, in certain sections, touches areas that strikes the reader to the core. No, the hero is not perfect. Yes, he fails over and over again. But the battles he fights! The nature of forgiveness, pain, guilt, ecstatic joy--Spenser pulld no punches. And to point out another irony of historical revisionism prevalent in the public schools: Spenser has sexual allusions (fear not, for they are used to show, in the words of CS Lewis, "the fierceness of Chastity" and the bloody fight that its worth); even more shocking is that Spenser is a proto-Puritan, thus debunking the whole Puritan "prude" myth. By the way, the true hero in the book is King Arthur, not Redcrosse; you will see why later in the book.

Yes, the book is hard to read, even with Maynard's annotations. But oddly enough, it is easy to follow, by and large. I will end with a quote from CS Lewis, "...to read Spenser is to grow in mental health."

I have never had much patience with poetry; I prefer a good story to sentimentalism and obscure imagery. Nevertheless, I read this book when I learned that St. George and the Dragon, one of my favorite stories, is in The Faerie Queen. What a pleasure! I could hardly put the book down. The imagery is so vivid and the language so beautiful. Mr. Maynard's notes are very helpful without being distracting or interrupting the flow of the poetry.

For anyone who enjoys reading about knights, legends, and heroic deeds, this book is a must. In a fantasy world, created by Edmund Spencer, the young and inexperienced Redcross Knight must save Lady Una's kingdom from a fierce dragon. The annotations and definitions are a valuable contribution to this work originally written in the 1500's.

This is NOT an adventure story, like "Lord of the Rings" or "the Hobbit"; nor even a compendium of stories and myths, like "the Silmarillion." It is from Tolkien's main work of linguistic study in the Dark Ages, gleaning a bit of insight from a few scraps of language and a lot of guesswork. It is really only for those working in Old English, or the Anglo-Saxon culture, or closely related fields. It is probably very good in that context; I haven't the background to say; but it is nothing like Tolkien's popular works, and anyone looking for something of that sort should seek elsewhere.

Alan Bliss's Introduction to Old English Metre first appeared in justified 12-pitch Courier back in '76 and remains the standard study on the subject. In Finn and Hengest, Bliss is somewhat more than an editor and Tolkien somewhat less than an author. According to Bliss's preface, his having given a paper on the implications of historical comparison between Beowulf and the Finnsburg fragment, he was advised that Tolkien had anticipated his conclusions decades before, and he then proceeded to get permission to edit Tolkien's lecture notes on the topic, which were in various states of development.

What results, though bound to be tough sledding for all but the very most scholarly of readers, is a window on a past that is far more remote from our contemporary situation than imperial Rome or 5th-century Athens, even though less distant in time: namely, the period immediately preceding the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. This was a time of blood feuds between pagan proto-Viking tribes in the wake of the Roman's empire's all-but-forgotten withdrawal from northern Europe, a time when noble ideals could result in bestial atrocities, from which in turn could result tragedies that Aeschylus might have telescoped for the dramatic stage.

Which is not to say that what emerges from a close reading is presented in this way. These are classroom lecture notes, which assume a working knowledge of Old English and a general knowledge of its surviving written records, literary and prosaic (not that this is a hard-and-fast distinction in the surviving Old English documents from our present-day perspective). Nevertheless, what emerges is none the less affecting for the lack of melodramatic treatment, which would only distort and misrepresent the actual lives that were lived and remembered more than a millennium and a half ago, in the northwest corner of the European mainland which now comprises Denmark, Holland, Belgium and parts of Germany and France; nor do the scholarly technicalities detract from realization of the fragility of our links with people whose struggle for gentility in the midst of savagery differed from our own not in kind but only as a matter of degree.

And yet, if we can find our way to a sense of familial kinship with these stiff-necked, fur-clad barbarians, how should we despair of understanding each other?

For all of you Middle Earth fans, the appendices in "The Lord of the Rings" were just games. This is the real thing.

Tolkien was a heavyweight scholar before he published a word of fiction. In his admittedly narrow academic circle, he was a famous man before ever there was a Hobbit. This book is based on lectures delivered by Tolkien over a period of years. Tolkien being Tolkien, he never got around to publishing them and he never stayed his hand from making changes. They have been deciphered, collated and edited into coherent form by a younger man, Alan Bliss, no mean feat of scholarship in itself.

The Dark Age was not entirely dark, nor were the Germanic barbarians wholly devoid of culture. Beyond a shadow of doubt, they possessed full-scale epics and many shorter heroic songs and lays. Many were gathered together by Alcuin, the great Anglo-Saxon scholar imported into the court of Charlemagne. When the mighty emperor died, he was succeeded by his son, then known as Louis the Debonaire, but more accurately called Louis the Pious by later generations. When Louis came in, out went his father's mistresses and his secular books. "What has Ingeld [an epic hero mentioned in Beowulf] to do with Christ?" asked Alcuin, now an enthusiastic book burner.

In our time, just one full-scale Germanic epic survives, Beowulf--and that clung to life in only a single copy. A pitifully few fragments of another large-scale poem, Waldhere, the epic of Walter of Aquitaine's conflict with his best friend and direst enemy, Hagen the Niblung, were found in the binding of an old book. Tolkien's book deals with a third epic story, the tale of Hengest, a hero who is caught in a particularly nasty moral dilemma. He had not only survived the death in battle of Hnaef, his prince, a dicey enough thing by the standards of his heroic age, but he had reached a truce with the foreign king who had killed Hnaef. The epic question was "What does a noble warrior do next?" The question was so interesting to the warrior society of Germanic barbarism, that two versions of the tale survive. One is a longish poem-within-a-poem quoted in Beowulf and the other is a tiny fragment of the whole epic, the episode that leads up to death of Prince Hnaef.

The tale was obviously so well known that neither the Beowulf poet nor the unknown skald of the Fragment felt it necessary to explain anything. Tolkien's literary goal was to extract as much sense out of his intractable materials as he could and to attempt reconstruction of the original story.

In addition to that, there is a historic question. Heroic epics are not necessarily tall tales of pure fiction. Hygelac, Beowulf's king, is a quite historical character. A contemporary monkish chronicler in Latin fully agrees with the Anglo-Saxon epic poet that Hygelac died in a disastrous raid on the Frisian Islands fairly close to 520 A.D. Beowulf, Hygelac's henchman and successor, heard of Hengest's dilemma as an old story, something from at least two or three generation earlier. Now, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that one Hengest, who led the wave of Anglo-Saxon invaders and died as King of Kent, landed on British soil in 449 A.D. Were the two Hengests the same man? The times seem to coincide, and there is no other Hengest on surviving record. Could a warrior named Hengest, likely an Angle, so thoroughly have blotted his copybook by outliving his prince that there was no place left for him in German lands? Was he forced to carve out his own new kingdom in Britain?

Read this book and then return to Middle Earth. Compare Tolkien's warrior princes with the originals on whom they were based. Revisit those appendices to "The Lord of the Rings" and compare the caricature of scholarship with the real thing.

For those who can brave the trip, five stars.

Alan Bliss's Introduction to Old English Metre first appeared in justified 12-pitch Courier back in '76 and remains the standard study on the subject. In Finn and Hengest, Bliss is somewhat more than an editor and Tolkien somewhat less than an author. According to Bliss's preface, his having given a paper on the implications of historical comparison between Beowulf and the Finnsburg fragment, he was advised that Tolkien had anticipated his conclusions decades before, and he then proceeded to get permission to edit Tolkien's lecture notes on the topic, which were in various states of development.

What results, though bound to be tough sledding for all but the very most scholarly of readers, is a window on a past that is far more remote from our contemporary situation than imperial Rome or 5th-century Athens, even though less distant in time: namely, the period immediately preceding the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. This was a time of blood feuds between pagan proto-Viking tribes in the wake of the Roman's empire's all-but-forgotten withdrawal from northern Europe, a time when noble ideals could result in bestial atrocities, from which in turn could result tragedies that Aeschylus might have telescoped for the dramatic stage.

Which is not to say that what emerges from a close reading is presented in this way. These are classroom lecture notes, which assume a working knowledge of Old English and a general knowledge of its surviving written records, literary and prosaic (not that this is a hard-and-fast distinction in the surviving Old English documents from our present-day perspective). Nevertheless, what emerges is none the less affecting for the lack of melodramatic treatment, which would only distort and misrepresent the actual lives that were lived and remembered more than a millennium and a half ago, in the northwest corner of the European mainland which now comprises Denmark, Holland, Belgium and parts of Germany and France; nor do the scholarly technicalities detract from realization of the fragility of our links with people whose struggle for gentility in the midst of savagery differed from our own not in kind but only as a matter of degree.

And yet, if we can find our way to a sense of familial kinship with these stiff-necked, fur-clad barbarians, how should we despair of understanding each other?

I first read this book in the mid 70's and it still is one of the best books of it's kind ever written.The story tells of just one day in the first world war from both the British and German point of view.Individual personal stories are described which give a human dimension to the conflict that is often missing in
histories of the period.This book is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the Battle of the Somme or the wider conflict.Both the before and after events are described so one is able to see the whole picture.A terrible picture emerges from
these pages as would be expected but also an extraordinary story of endurance and fortitude asserts itself by the time you have finished the book.You cannot but be in awe of those who passed through this battle and survived to tell their story here.
There are no good guys or bad guys in this story just ordinary men from all walks of life who found themselves in truly dire circumstances.Almost one million casualties-on both sides-were incurred during the whole period of the Somme from July to November 1916-sixty thousand in just this one day.
Many of the soldiers have no known grave-seventy thousand of whom are remembered at the Thiepval memorial to the missing.
As long as books like this are written the fallen are remembered from this battle and all others-indeed as Kipling wrote ...Their name liveth for evermore...

Please note that I am 51 not 13 who prefers to remain anomynous.

The Somme saw 60,000 casualties in its first days. An entire generation of English youth was whipped out as they charged into a hail of led. This definitive account of the first day of the battle gives a wonderful introduction into the horrors of trench warefare in World War One and will make you understand why the war created so many pacisifists since the battles were full of meaningless slaughter. A very scholaraly account which includes much military detail and many maps and figures that makes one feel like they are an arm chair general at the Somme. A wonderful account of the epic battle.

One problem with battle histories is that writers tend to overstate the horror and the gore. Martin Middlebrook did not face this temptation in 'The First Day on the Somme.' It could hardly be overstated.

This book was written in 1969-71, when Middlebrook was able to interview about 200 veterans of the battle. He follows the paths of 10 of them -- all Britons -- whose experiences were, even for that bloody day, extraordinary. He frankly ignores the French part of the assault, and quotes sparingly from the German defenders.

Fair enough. This is British history written for Britons, and, in 1971, still a vivid social and even political memory in the U.K. For my taste, he is far too lenient on the generals. The famous postwar description of the British Army -- 'lions led by donkeys' -- was cruel but entirely just.
Middlebrook does not mention it.

He is somewhat tougher on the politicians in London, though they get little attention.

Reading 'First Day' now, 90 years afterward, inspires other reflections: how deep class and religious divisions were in Britain, and how damaging.

Class affected how much a boy ate. The British fielded a 'Bantam Division' of men all under 5-foot-3. They fought well, to defend a society that didn't think they deserved to eat regularly.

In 1916 (and for a generation after), most people could not drive automobiles, or were unable to master the art if they tried. The technology was too unfamiliar to people who grew up with horses. It was a blunder with the darkest consequences to fight a mechanized war with leaders from the Horse Age.

The Somme saw 60,000 casualties in its first days. An entire generation of English youth was whipped out as they charged into a hail of led. This definitive account of the first day of the battle gives a wonderful introduction into the horrors of trench warefare in World War One and will make you understand why the war created so many pacisifists since the battles were full of meaningless slaughter. A very scholaraly account which includes much military detail and many maps and figures that makes one feel like they are an arm chair general at the Somme. A wonderful account of the epic battle.

Bob Wallace has made the leap from accomplished medical professional and camp master to literary genius. In this book he has managed to capture the essence of youth and their fight against cancer as well as show the true spirit of these great kids. This is an amazing book, a must read for any parent.

This isn't one of those sad, heartwrenching books about kids with cancer. It uses humor, anecdotes, and superhero references to express how strong these kids really are. It offers a peek into the lives of children with cancer, through the eyes of a camp counselor. It's a must read for everyone, even if you don't personally know a child with cancer. It reminds us that there is more to life than what we take for granted. This book makes you look at kids with cancer differently. Not only that, but I now look at Spam as not only an alternative food product, but as an endless source of entertainment! Hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!

This book has so much heart, you can't help but love Uncle Bob and his amazing experiences with these kids. I connected with this book on more levels than you could know; it reaches out to you and speaks to your deepest fears- and helps you laugh at them.

This book is the epitome of hope. What better way to illustrate strength, knowledge, and love than through the experiences of a child-turned-adult who has been forced to live with cancer? I laughed at adventures of pirates and spam, cried for those who were lost, and marvelled at stories of courage and companionship.

Everyone is touched by cancer in some way in their lives. This book accepts the horrors of the world and makes them, if not less real, then less overwhelming. It encourages you to laugh at every situation, live every day like it's your last, and never lose sight of what really matters. It's a story that will make you smile and warm your heart; I highly recommend it.

Flying with Scissors is a truly inspirational book. In fact, it's a work of art. The humor and illustrations will have you laughing and crying. Some of the true-to-life accounts of children fighting their own battles with cancer made my heart warm in a way that rarely happens when I read a book. Though non-fiction, the story read like a novel. It was honest, funny, daring at times, and extremely well-written. I am truly impressed and highly recommend Flying With Scissors to anyone who has a loved one with childhood cancer, or any other person who wants to read a truly inspirational book that will make you want to love more, enjoy family and friends more, and celebrate life to the fullest. I can't help but rave about this one. I hope to see more books from Bob Wallace. Well done!

These are first hand accounts of men and women that lived through the first world war. It is all there--loyalty to your fellow soldiers, cowardice, indifferent heroism, terror, and the feeling of apartheid from home and family. The most striking rememberances I took from the book were the white feather incidents--where white feathers were given to soldiers out of uniform on leave in England by young women as a goad to get to the trenches.

This is the first book I've ever read in one day; 'I rest my case'.

My most lingering memory is the story of the soldier who was shot for 'losing his way' and not showing up for a battle. When offered brandy by the narrator before meeting his maker, he said he'd 'never drunk spirits and wasn't going to start now'. Not such a coward, after all.

Max Arthur's new book covering the Great War is quite unique in that its content is nearly all first-hand accounts from people who experienced the horror of the Great War. The author has utilized a number of tape recorded interviews conducted by the Imperial War Museum in 1972. Many of the tapes from the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive had been forgotten and left unheard for years.

Now Max Arthur has put together many of these unheard voices from the Great War to produce this spellbinding and captivating book. I must admit that I was reluctant to buy this book as I was worried that a book full of short accounts would be too disjointed and really not detailed enough to satisfy my interest. I can honestly say that I truly enjoyed reading this book.

Each chapter of the book was a year of the Great War and was commenced by an introduction by the author offering a brief run down on the major events of that year. Then we heard from the men and women who participated in these events, from both sides of no-man's land. The author has concentrated mainly on the Western Front and Gallipoli and has tried to run the oral segments in chronological order.

I was really taken by these segments and I found it hard to stop reading. The accounts from these soldiers and civilians alike were at times humorous, strikingly direct, horrifying and on many occasions quite sad. I was really taken in by these accounts and I don't think that any World War One library would be complete without this title sitting on the shelf. I can honestly say that I learnt quite a few things from this book and I would place it along side such works offered by Lyn MacDonald. Well done to the author and the Imperial War Museum for allowing these veterans, many now long dead, the last word on their experiences in the Great War. This is a great book, you won't be disappointed.

This book is full of fascinating wartime anecdotes given by the soldiers fighting it and the citizens involved in it. The staff of the UK's Imperial War Museum sifted through mountains of archives and picked out the very best to use in the book. Through the use of their own personal letters/interviews, the book follows the history of particular, mostly British, individuals during the war. It loosely follows the major battles of the Western Front and Gallipoli and even the Home Front.

Most of the letters vary in length between one paragraph and one page and are packed with the kind of realistic details that typical narrative histories of the World War I skip over. For example, in Gallipoli (p. 118) one soldier writes, "One of the biggest curses was flies. Millions and millions of flies. ... Immediately you bared any part of your body you were smothered." Short of actually being there, these kind of first person participant narratives deliver the essence of the war - harsh, demanding, brutal, comedic, and ocassionally surreal. The straightforward writing styles and unusual content make this book a true pleasure to read.

I have read over 40 books about the Great War, and this book is one of the best for personal narratives about the war. It's multi-person perspective delivers a well-balanced, insightful picture of the war at ground level (free of any hidden agenda). This book would perfectly complement a broad narrative history of World War I.

The first amendment gives us the right to free speech and for the most part this is a fairly simple concept right? Well in 1994 in Massachusetts this became a complex legal issue that turned a simple parade into chaos.

Riveting from beginning to the very end, this 600-page fact filled legal expose on how our court system really works, is like nothing else you'll ever read. The authors take you on a journey from the state court right the steps of the highest court in the land.

Using actual trial transcripts and painstaking detail, the author's leave no stone unturned. I was simply amazed at how much information was packed into the book. I was simply astounded by the way the system works.

Law professors and students of law need to take and read this work. It is most likely the best book of the first amendment law. A great work in the legal field and a very good read - well done!

As an attorney, what I found most interesting about this book was the use of trial transcripts to help frame the debate on the larger First Amendment constitutional issues. The authors did a superb job of telling a complex story from beginning to end. I would recommend some of my old professors take a close look at this work, and consider using it in trial advocacy and constitutional law classes. I don't remember anything like this when I was at school, but can say it told me a lot more about how the judicial process works than I learned in the classroom.

By far, this book tops all others on how our courts operate. The authors have given a detailed look at the legal system at every level, state and federal, and cover so much territory in so short a space that the book borders on being overwhelming. This is the definitive book on "process". Using rich citation to trial transcripts the authors show in meticulous detail how some judges try to unwrap constitutional guarantees to achieve what they think the law shoud be. I read three other works which aspired to this detail: "Out of Order", "Civil Action" and "Closed Chambers" and can state that none were as insightful as this. This is truly a remarkable work, and should be mandatory reading in every law school in this country.

"Riveting..." National Law Journal; "Compelling... well-written..." Bimonthly Review of Law Books; "Tremendously engaging..." AOB News; "One of the most informativbe law books I have read..." Journal of the Indiana Bar Assoc.; "Chilling, troubling, Kafkaesque..." Prof. Charles E. Rounds Jr., Suffolk Law School

Wendy Lesser asked fifteen modern writers to reflect on their formative experiences with language and culture, and her Genius Of Language is the result: a survey of how writers alienated from their mother tongue embraced English and faced exile from both their culture and their own language. Essays by Amy Tan, Louis Begley and others provide important keys to understanding the process of adapting to another language and all its cultural implications.

This book of short essays assembled by Wendy Lesser is well worth the time and attention of anyone who enjoys language and the craft of writing. It provides the insights of serious authors as each adapted to the English language after being first subject to another tongue. As a bonus, the book is worthwhile in that it gives the reader a quick appreciation of the varied writing styles of fifteen talented authors, in case the reader would like to track down and explore any of their other independent works.

As someone with no ear at all for foreign languages, I find it amazing that these people become writers and then choose to write in what to them is a foreign language. Even more, they write it so much better than the rest of us.

They also reflect on how their bi-lingualism makes their English better. It seems that the effort of learning the second language gives them somewhat of a drive to find ways to express themselves in English what might be an easy thing to express in their own tongue. As a result, they learn ways to use English that stretch the language to its limit.

To have gotten fifteen writers of the caliber contributing essays to this book has to be considered a major coup on Wendy Lesser's part. This book provides an insight to language that is astounding.

If you are at all interested in language, language-acquisition, and how language (multi-linguilism) and life/identity intertwine, you'll love curling up with this book. There are 15 essays, arranged by the non-English (mother-tongue) language of the writer. Each of the six writers I have read thus far have approached the subject in wholly different (and mostly fascinating) lights. Tan is mercilessly sharp and funny while asking how seriously we should take the "language-shapes-reality" theory and while illustrating the fallacies of Chinese language/culture stereotpyes. Ariel Dorfman brilliantly uses an unconventional essay structure to probe and deconstruct his conflicted journey through his bilinguilism (Spanish/English)with extraordinary intelligence and linguistic/psychological force and sensitivity. With such a variety of languages, writers, styles/experiences, what's not to love?

Whether you happen to know the how's and why's of Christana Rossetti's life and time, her poetry, and especially Goblin Market, is truely amazing. Of course knowing her circumstanses only makes the joy and fascination even bigger for a comtemporary reader. The courage and the cost for a woman to be able to write what she wrote can only be imagined. She is the original Girl Power if ever there was such a thing and Goblin Market a legacy of its time.

I think Goblin Market was a wonderful book for whatever type of life you happen to live. Each and every poem can be interpereted in so many different ways to pertain to your own life. The poems were not meant to be taken literally word for word, and the religious aspects of the book do not necessarily need to be interpereted just as they are written. It is a book of poems written by a strong woman that was not afraid to show her feelings. I recommend it to anyone that enjoys poetry and has an open and thoughtful mind.

...however, a lot of the other works contained in this short compilation are a bit too feminine for my tastes. Also, unfortunately, a lot of the Judeo-Christian religious references do not exactly "float my boat." Goblin Market, though, is an exquisite epic to be enjoyed by all.

The lead Amazon review, I think, is very much off the mark. Rossetti's works include passionate, idealized references to men, so it is doubtful she was a lesbian. Therefore Goblin Market was likely an outlet for the strong sexuality of a strong woman bound by the conventions of Victorian society. It has been speculated that Goblin Market, as a poetic work of Pre-Raphaelite fantasy fiction, was written with the expectation that its sexual symbolism would be recognized by readers. I disagree, and believe many Victorians took it as a cautionary allegory warning girls against the wiles of the "coarser gender". Until some literary scholar of the period or of Rossetti steps forward with definitive social or biographical information, I believe Victorian mothers may have read this work to young daughters, both blind to the innuendos and imagery. That said, whether Goblin Market's nuances were meant to be patent or subliminal, it stands as a classic of its literary type, and is an exquisite, sensuous and passionate poetical work.