Ireland Books

I have little to add to the five good reviews posted so far, but a few notes may be worthwhile. I'm an anthropologist, not an archaeologist but a confirmed archaeology junkie, and I took this book along on a trip to Scotland. It was a great book to have. It was particularly valuable for the Orkneys, whose Golden Age seems to have been around 3000-4000 BC (an odd time and place for a Golden Age, but the stuff is literally monumental).
Pryor seems to write his popular books by turning on the tape recorder while telling tales in the local pub. He has a great British yarn-spinning style, and (more in the wonderful Medieval volume than in this one) he tells you all the good pubs to visit after you see the sites (pun irresistible). You learn about his wife (an archaeologist specializing in ancient wood), his sheep farm (re-creating old methods), his sheepdog, and much else, all charming.
Be warned of some biases. He interprets the record as one of evolution in place with a few outside influences trickling in, rather than a series of invasions. I generally agree with him (I know the literature pretty well), but some do not, so read e.g. recent works by Colin Renfrew and decide for yourselves.
One really interesting item surfaces on pp. 149-151: amazingly beautiful and carefully made "axe-heads" in lovely stone. I thought he might be exaggerating--he loves even a few squiggly lines on a Neolithic object--but a visit to the Museum of Scotland convinced me that he is, if anything, understating. These axeheads have never been used. They are in mint condition, not even showing handling wear. They are among the most stunningly beautiful pieces of stonework I have ever seen--perfect in form, exquisitely polished, and clearly intended to be consummately beautiful. Some were made of jadeite (hard as quartz) and traded all the way from the Alps. They are as fine as any Chinese or Maya jadeite pieces. They were found in burials and other presumably ritual contexts, and clearly hold a lot of secrets. They show that even the European Neolithic, notable otherwise for some pretty sorry pottery, had high aesthetic standards.
One place we visited in the Orkneys was Maes Howe, a huge domed communal tomb made of giant slabs of rock around 3000-3500 BC. In the Medieval period, some Vikings got caught in a storm and took refuge in it. Two of them went insane during the night. Watch out for those Neolithic spirits.
Pryor is writing partly to get more support and conservation for archaeological sites. I thoroughly support this, and wish him every success. One reason why we need them is that they show how similar people are in all times and places. I love archaeology because it is so unsurprising: it shows us that people lived, ate, wore clothes, loved, had children, butchered pigs, died and were buried, pretty much as they have at all times and places. Those flashy differences in art and politics seem unimportant beside the loving and caring burials, the worn clothing, the carefully worked wood, and the fire-blackened cooking pots emerging from peat bogs and clay pits. The bones of our ancestors reminds us that what matters is that we are all siblings beneath the skin.

As a former participant in the Fengate excavations that Francis Pryor supervised near Peterborough in the 1970s, I found his interpretation of Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age ritual in the daily life of prehistoric Britian to be compelling, interspersed as it was with personal anecdotes and current case studies. This book only whetted my appetite to return and experience anew those discoveries and many more, enlightened by a new understanding of my own roots, both professional and personal.

Dr. Boyd Dixon
Senior Archaeologist
PBS&J
Austin Texas

As the other 3 reviewers have provided brilliant reviews about the topics, the author and information provided, all I will add, like my fellow reviewer above is:
Pryor's: Britain BC is very comprehensive for the home history buff (with no prior archeology knowledge required .... phew !!) and incredibly interesting, and at times completely mind blowing.

I feel intellectually richer having read this book. And in all honesty, for the small price it costs here on Amazon ..... if you 'dig' (pardon the pun) this type of stuff - BUY IT !!

This is a very enjoyable book that explores the ancient history of Britain from a perspective not often found in other works. As the other two reviews written here do an excellent job of detailing what you'll find in this enjoyable volume, I'll save you the time of reading my review and simply say "I concur".

Pryor has combined his own expertise from the archaeological field with a thorough understnading of the work of fellow archaeologists, (both in the UK and abroad), to present a vibrant, fluid and exceptionally informative look at life before Roman Britain.

Where Pryor makes some "judgement calls", he is open and honest about how much evidence there is and some different ways of understanding it. He presents a variety of views.

What you end up with a very comprehensive view of prehistoric life in Britain that does not get lost in reams of dry information. Pryor writes with an obvious passion for the topic, and that enthusiasm comes out in the writing.

It is basically a great book, with loads of information. I learned heaps from it!

Children of the Dead End is as captivating to read as any more respected novel of development. There may be some problems with the formal structures of the novel in regards to the genre, but it is a wonderful read nonetheless. I truly enjoyed reading the book, and it was successful in eliciting my emotions. As a true-to-life account of the hardships that Irish Catholic families dealt with at the turn of the 20th Century, Children of the Dead End deserves to be canonized right along with anything that Joyce had written.

This story is truly autobiographical of my grandfather's early life and is very moving and effective. His early years in Donegal were difficult and fraught with the perils of poverty. Nevertheless, Grandpa overcame is lack of formal education and humble beginnings to be a successful author. His later years were no less difficult as he struggled for decades with the debilitation of MS, but he raised, with my grandmother, three amazingly strong and successful women. This autobiographical novel teaches us all abouth the indomitable strength of the human will and spirit.

This is one of the most memorable books I have ever read. The writer tells the story of growing up in Donegal and his exit to scotland in search of work. You are drawn into his life and the people he loved. There is an honesty in the writing that moves you to tears.

this book is the most moving book I have ever read. It tells the story of a young man making his way in life. Born in Donegal, Ireland working his way through Scotland and the USA. It will move you to tears and lead you to book after book from this very talented writer.

Having read Children of the Dead End for the first time I was taken over by it.It is a story of extraordinary main characters,humour and the bleak portrayal of life as a near slave,potatoe digger and the harsh life as a navvie. I was amazed at the life that the main character"Dermod" lived.He left home at the age of 12 without an education and he went to the hiring fair and worked to send money back home to his family.He has to face the harsh reality and he gambles his money and becomes a heavy drinker. He experiences life without a roof over his head. This story is said to be Patrick MacGills autobiography. Some of the Characters are fictonal while others are said to be true characters. Mac Gills descriptive power is Compelling and I never wanted to leave the book down. Children of the Dead End is an undiscovered classic of Irish litriture and it should be comended.

I love all the books by Debbie Bliss. Lots of patterns and Ideas. If you love her yarn you will love the books too.

Another great Debbie Bliss book...Some really beautiful patterns in this book...Just remember that the end results will come out lots bigger than you think...Very generous sizing...

I just counted, I have 7 books by Debbie Bliss. That is probably why I found this book to be a bit less enchanting than I had expected it to be.

I like her books - enjoy the layout and can always understand the instructions. However, within the body of her work, this set of designs just seemed a little too similar to some in her other books for me to get excited. As a stand alone book, it has charming styles.

I still give it a 4 for good instructions, photography and cute styles.

Bliss designed a great variety of styles, all attractive and all, sadly, only in children's sizing (many would make truly lovely adult sweaters). Difficulty level is not high -- some are fairly simple to make and the others are well worth the effort. Some are rugged sweaters, others decorative. Sweaters for boys and girls, too. The photography is nice and instructions are clear. Really a fabulous book.

....and I mean it. This one is really good. Like many other knitters I have been burned by Bliss' designs often. Her designs do tend to repeat themselves from collection to collection and the pictures, while cute, never show the designs properly. Well, this collection has b&w pictures of the items next to the instructions after the color pictures which are huddled in the front of the book. (I'm talking about a hardcover copy and am assuming that the paperback is identical). The designs are charming and definitely classics. I am buying my own paperback copy and finally returning my library copy. I also recommend the book Knits for Kids by Lena Stengard. This one is a keeper

I have devoted a good portion of my life to the study of mathematics in general, especially algebra and number theory. This book is an extraordinary reference to many areas of number theory and extremely approachable. The book can be studied on its own or as a companion piece to more specialized texts such as Marcus's Number Fields.

If ever there was a textbook of which one could say that it was a thing of beauty, this has to be it. The book is very clearly written, and it is readily accessible even to those without a deep understanding of algebra or analysis; despite this, it manages to touch upon a great deal of relatively sophisticated material, and in a way that makes clear the links between the problems of the past and those of the present. I'd imagine that the book would constitute an essential item of reference for anyone with more than a passing interest in number theory.

I am currently finishing my third year of undergraduate math at Brown University, and have just completed a course that used this particular book. I have to say it's the most WELL WRITTEN math book I've ever read, and I've read many, many math books by now (more than I'm willing to count as I'm typing this). Professor Rosen (and Ken Ireland, God rest his soul) have made a book that has both fun and interesting problems as well as clear explanations of proofs in the text. It does of course require that you know the basics of abstract algebra (in particular, one is expected to know that "1" is a unit and therefore cannot be prime, so of course when we discuss problems involving factorization into primes, one will of course ignore the number 1). One is also expected to know the basics of formal logic (i.e. understanding how a proof by induction works, how a proof by contradiction works, and knowing that any proper subset of the natural numbers will have a least element), and I choose to point this out simply because MrBigBeast's review makes it obvious that all these facts were not understood. Despite the fairly large amount of assumed knowledge (this is a book intended for advanced undergrads and first year grad students, afterall), this book takes one on an amazing adventure through the depths of elementary number theory, as well as introduces you to very advanced topics in both algebraic and analytic number theory (ever want to know about Zeta Functions? This book treats the topic quite nicely, making a fairly difficult concept accessible). Truly a gem of a book and worth buying even if you never use it for a course.

I picked up this book as a junior in college and was simply stunned. The flow of ideas is so natural that there are times when you can even read the book like a novel. The exposition is clean, and the proofs are elegant.
However, keep in mind that this book IS a GTM. Hence, it requires pre-requisites by way of approximately a year of abstract algebra. As the author says in the preface, it's possible to read a the first 11 chapters without it. However, to appreciate the beauty of the theory, I would sincerely recommend algebra as pre-req.
The first 12 chapters can be considered 'elementary' (not easy, just fundamental). The others are specialized algebraic topics. For instance, the chapter on elliptic curves is useful to get a flavor of the subject. However, it includes very few proofs.

I'm currently an undergrad math and phsyics major at Brown, and I loved this book. Rosen is a great teacher and a great writer. As per the post below mine, the submitter is being overly nitpicky. If a reader cannot realize that unique factorization of Z+ extends to Z or understand immediately the nature of "1", then perhaps the reader shouldn't be trying to learn advanced number thoery. As per using the conclusion in the proof, it's called proof by induction. It's easy and trivial enough that I'm sure they didn't want to waste the readers time going through the incredibly obviouse steps.

The book is great. The problems are fun and interesting, and the book gradually generalizes which makes the abstraction easier to conceptualize. If you need something with tons of really baisc excersizes and proofs that will walk you through every step of the way, no matter how small, then this book may not be for you. But if you are a seriouse student looking for an interesting and insightfull introduction to the subject, I highly recomend this book

A very interesting and concise history of Greece from the 18th century to the present. It includes detailed examinations of all the major turning points in Greek history in the last three hundred years; the Greek war of independence, Greece under the Nazis, the Greek Civil War and the dictatorship. All of the important passions that have overcome the Greeks are woven into the story as is the story of the destruction of the Greek peoples of Anatolia (The Pontic Greeks and Smyrna Greeks and others) as well as the ethnic-cleansing of Greeks by the Turks from places such as Adrianople, Constantinople and Rumania and Bulgaria. The conflict over Macedonia is highlighted as is the tragic story of the 100,000 strong Greek community of Egypt that was also cleansed by the Nasser regime.

A fascinating history,

Seth J. Frantzman

This is a great book for both an introduction as well as an on-going reference source on modern Greece.
Highly recommend it to students or anyone interested in learning the history of the modern state, without getting bogged down with boring details.

I enjoyed reading the book but in some parts I had difficulties to understand the context. Somehow, Clogg jumps from one subject to the other. Also, there were very difficult historical words which are especially difficult for readers whose mother tongue is not English. Admittedly, the book has not been written for foreign readers but I think that even an English native speaker has a problem to understand words like "irredentism" and "shibboleth" if he didn't study history. Another problem is the title of some chapters. He calls one chapter "The legacy of the Civil war 1950 - 1974" although the civil war in Greece was between 1944 and 1949 or so. How can he call this capter in the abovementioned way if he writes about military rule and the Cyprus conflict? He admitted in a way that Britain and the USA have contributed to the beginning of the Cyprus conflict but he doesn't write much about it. I read the book but sometimes I did not understand it, in particular the context. I wished he would have written also more about the Ottoman rule in Greece or even the beginning of the history of Greece. The book would have been thicker, indeed, but it would have given more information. Also, he should have given the book a slightly different title, for instance "A Concise History of Greece - 1770 - 1990". This would have been clearer because as a reader you think that he has written about the whole history of Greece. However, all in all it was a good book. I enjoyed it.

Now in an expanded second edition, A Concise History Of Greece by Richard Clogg (Fellow of St. Anthony's College, Oxford University, England) is a straightforward, scholarly chronicle of the modern history of Greece, ranging from the Ottoman rule of the late 1700's, to the pressures of Balkan strife and political modernization of the present day. Deftly written and carefully researched, supplemented with tables, short biographies, as well as a listing of the royal houses of Greece, A Concise History Of Greece is an excellent and scholarly survey of the modern growth of the nation which is a strongly recommended addition to academic World History collections in general, and Hellenic History supplemental reading lists in particular.

Richard Clogg is a renowned international scholar who has been writing about Greek history for decades. This work is a popularization (from footnotes deliver me) that should prove very helpful to the layman with more than a casual interest in Greece. It invites comparison with C.M. Woodhouse's also famous history, but I must declare myself incompetent to decide if one is better than the other.

Clogg's section on the Ottoman period is blessedly brief and his discussion of the Nazi occupation and Communist insurection are to-the-point yet incisive.

Perhaps the most exciting feature of the work is the great bunch of pictures gracing nearly every page and showing the days of glory in Modern Greece as well as some of the saddest. The maps are also helpful.

There are no footnotes but the selective bibliography will be useful to most readers. There is also an appendix giving thumbnail biographies of some luminaries in modern Greek history.

For most, Charles Dickens is the only source we've encountered regarding the awful human misery of the early industrial revolution. However, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx reported on it, too. Indeed, most of their criticisms were far more applicable to the raw capitalism of contemporary England than their native Germany.

Engels stayed in Manchester, the premier industrial city of the time, during the early 1840's to research his book. And he produced a devastating indictment of the truly miserable and life-threatening living conditions he found. Unlike Marx, Engels had a pronounced flair for writing; he makes it a fascinating, eye-opening journey back through time.

The topics he includes cover: struggling labor movements, the denigrating effects of immigration on domestic workers (due to competing subsistence-cost labor), the ignorance and crippling of child workers, the sexual exploitation of women workers, the displacement of male heads of household by lower-cost and more pliant women/children, the unbelievable filth and subhuman housing conditions workers endured, the dangerous and unhealthy working conditions of miners/factory workers, rampant substance abuse, doping of children by babysitters, the total lack of legal redress for the poor, the displacement of labor by machinery, and the role of unbridled competition in perpetrating economic distress.

While we all know communism has failed, its rise was due to these very real and serious problems, some of which remain with many Western workers today. And most of these conditions do very much persist in emerging economies right now. So, even though the book is well over 150 years old it is still highly valid!

The main fault of course with Marx/Engels' communist philosophy is that ALL humans are greedy and lazy - it's just that the clever ones (whether they originate from 'bourgeous' or 'working' classes) will always exploit the others. And it doesn't matter whether the system is capitalist or communist - those at the top will always exploit those below for personal advantage. Probably the best response has been the progressive social reform in Western nations over the last 100 years. (Revolutions and dictatorships usually only lead to mass murder.)

This chilling book is the real-life Oliver Twist exposed.I think Fredrick Engels wrote this book,in part to clear his conscious.And largely, to shed light on the fetid ,wretched underbelly of the 19th century industrial-age society.The nameless toilers working ten to twelve hour shifts,in a factory operation they had no vote or control over.Marx and Engels had many valid arguments for improving the workers lives.Did their end-results justify their means of social revolution? Engels would be amazed at the former textile towns,like Manchester,absorbing the large influx of Asians,Moslims and Africans today.It is still being debated,whether history has proven Engels & Marx right.This book is still a historical classic,thats presumptive findings give the modern reader,reason to pause. So,look all around you. -A Great Book !

Fabuous book. Engels wrote this when he was only 24- and what a tour de force.

The work is detailed, beautifully observed and elegantly written. Despite the depressing nature of the subject matter, the tone is always possible about a better world beyond the evils of capitalism.

Unfortunately 150 years after this masterpiece was written things dont seen to have gotten better under capitalism. Rather, the old evils of poverty, infectious diseases, starvation have been replaced by the modern evils of capitalism: obesity, alienation, mass materialism, depression, plunging fertility and marriage rates and so on...

Engels was the engine behind Karl Marx, one that gave him all the support he could, so to permit Marx to dedicate himself almost completely to the completion of his works. Judging himself many degrees bellow Marx in terms of intelect, Engels nonetheless is capable of writting a book such as this which describes all the impoverishment of the working class in the beginning of the industrialization in England, being helped by some well porputed factories labor fiscalization agents who allowed Engels to flip trough their reports. Strong terms like "the dark satanic mills" describe fully what were the working conditions of the time in a so rich country as England. An historical document lest no one forget what can happen again if the free hand of capitalism is allowed to run free of any barriers.

Friedrich Engels' classic "The Condition of the Working Class in England" was written when he was only twenty-four, and had but recently abandoned his Calvinist upbringing for a more critical, socialist, point of view. Yet this book reads as if it were written by an experienced political commentator or a radical sociologist, without actually at any point becoming melodramatic or dense.

Engels' main purpose is to confront the bourgeoisie with the reality of their mode of production and to contrast this with the rhetoric of "free choice" and "civil liberties", as well as the capitalist apologia of the political economists of his day, in particular Andrew Ure. With great insight into both the causes and effects of the capitalist system, Engels catalogues the endless want, filth, despair and misery experienced by millions of labourers every day in 19th century England. He pays attention to housing, to factory safety, to unionism, to the physical condition of the workers, to alcoholism, the state of the Irish underclass, to prostitution and disease; in short, all the ills attendant on industrialization.

What gives this book such power is that Engels on the one hand proceeds in an analytical manner, making use above all of sources from the bourgeoisie itself and from Parliamentary reports, in explaining the functioning of the capitalist system and the competition between capitalists and between labourers. On the other hand, he writes in a particularly readable manner and at no point bores the reader with the mere summing-up of statistics. On the contrary, every analytical truth is accompanied by a vivid description, taken from Engels' excursions into working-class neighbourhoods, of the terrible state of humanity that the economic laws of capitalism cause for a great number of people.

For those interested in political economy, it may come as a surprise to see how much of the functioning of capitalism Engels already understood at such an early point in the development of theory. This gives the lie to the many theorists who would later claim that it was Marx only who worked on economics and that Engels was a mere epigone; this book should be a vindication of Engels. His later sketches of the political economy and of the historical development of capitalism would lay the foundation for both the Communist Manifesto and Marx' economic works. But the core insights that would create the modern theory of socialism are for the first time fully expressed here, and in a most appealing and shockingly effective manner.

In other words, an absolute must read for every person of intelligence.

Cork Silver And Gold: Four Centuries Of Craftsmanship was published to coincide with the exhibition in the Crawford Gallery Cork, but stands alone as well as the first to detail the work of Cork silversmiths and goldsmiths, and will appeal to specialty art collections. Both public and private holdings were culled for this feature: what results is a display which will serve as both a history and a reference to any dedicated jewelry student studying Cork craftsmanship.

Cork Silver And Gold: Four Centuries Of Craftsmanship was published to coincide with the exhibition in the Crawford Gallery Cork, but stands alone as well as the first to detail the work of Cork silversmiths and goldsmiths, and will appeal to specialty art collections. Both public and private holdings were culled for this feature: what results is a display which will serve as both a history and a reference to any dedicated jewelry student studying Cork craftsmanship.

Cork Silver And Gold: Four Centuries Of Craftsmanship was published to coincide with the exhibition in the Crawford Gallery Cork, but stands alone as well as the first to detail the work of Cork silversmiths and goldsmiths, and will appeal to specialty art collections. Both public and private holdings were culled for this feature: what results is a display which will serve as both a history and a reference to any dedicated jewelry student studying Cork craftsmanship.

Cork Silver And Gold: Four Centuries Of Craftsmanship was published to coincide with the exhibition in the Crawford Gallery Cork, but stands alone as well as the first to detail the work of Cork silversmiths and goldsmiths, and will appeal to specialty art collections. Both public and private holdings were culled for this feature: what results is a display which will serve as both a history and a reference to any dedicated jewelry student studying Cork craftsmanship.

Cork Silver And Gold: Four Centuries Of Craftsmanship was published to coincide with the exhibition in the Crawford Gallery Cork, but stands alone as well as the first to detail the work of Cork silversmiths and goldsmiths, and will appeal to specialty art collections. Both public and private holdings were culled for this feature: what results is a display which will serve as both a history and a reference to any dedicated jewelry student studying Cork craftsmanship.

This book is the best in many ways. Spectacular designs, wonderfully written patterns, easy to follow schematics, special directions for special stitches. I love being able to make Aran style sweaters in crochet. The way the book is written it is also easy to use certain stitches and design my own sweater. Yes, you can do cables with crochet and they are beautiful!

I have a confession: I developed and edited this book for ME! Usually, in the book business, products are developed with a target reader in mind. Well, I broke the rules when I asked the designer, Jane Snedden Peever, to create the garments for Crocheted Aran Sweaters. I *love* every sweater in this book! In fact, I've already made half of them, and have yarn picked out to stitch the rest.

Plus, I've used the stitch patterns, which are explained in the Pattern Work Encyclopedia, to make other sweaters for me and my husband, and an afghan for his office.

Every time I wear one of the sweaters from this book, at least a handful of people admire the work and marvel that they're crocheted rather than knit. The work looks very intense, but most of the garments are actually easy to stitch. Scottish Reel, for example, has blocks worked in a variety of stitches. It looks really hard. But it isn't, because you make rectangles, working one stitch pattern after another, and then sew the pieces together. I made my Scottish Reel sweater in three days (of course, this is part of my job, so I stitched for seven hours a day).

Another thing I like about the sweaters in this book is that practically any Aran-weight yarn can be used for any of the sweaters. You can walk into any yarn or craft shop and probably find a yarn that'll work. How cool is that?

I hope that you enjoy this book as much as I do.

This book and Lily Chin's upcoming book are the only crochet books I've ever found that have sweaters I would actually wear. Instructions are clear. I'm mostly a knitter who dabbles in crochet and I had no problem with these directions.

I absolutely love this book! I wanted to take a brake from knitting and knew this book would be just the right thing to use of some yarn that didn't work out for a different project. The patterns are timeless and the possibilities are endless with the wide variety of yarns available. I've made the cover sweater and the crewneck cardigan and I couldn't be happier with the results. Crochet looks so neat and tidy and the stitches give such wonderful texture. The instructions are very clear and the stitch patterns are easy to remember so you don't have to do much flipping around. This is a definite must for anyone looking to crochet sweaters.

What a wonderful book! The patterns are so amazing looking and so detailed. I can't wait to get started! After reading this book, I'd definitely recommend it.

This cookbook is great and contains a plethora of easy to follow recipes from appetizers to desserts. A must-have for your kitchen library.

I had the good fortune to take a three-day "cookery" course from Darina Allen at her school in County Cork. She is the Julia Childs of Ireland. The demonstrations were great and then the students got to cook selected recipes the next morning. I recommend this book because it has 1. tested and easy-to-follow recipes. (The school always has students and instructors working from the written recipes.) 2. The Irish specialties, particularly the breads, are wonderful. Ireland is now a "foodies" paradise with hundreds of homemade cheeses and other artisan specialties, superb seafood, and a whole "slow food" movement. This cookbook is in its way a bible to what's going on. It is one you will use again and again.

The `ballymaloe cooking school cookbook' by school co-owner and Irish TV cooking show host, Darina Allen is my second volume in my search for the perfect Irish cookbook. As it turns out, this very heavy and long (639 pages) book is much, much more than a book about Irish cooking, as well it should be, since it is comparable to the Culinary Institute of America's textbook, `The New Professional Chef'. That is, it is a general textbook for essentially all styles of European and American cooking, with a tendency to include more Irish recipes than you would expect from a French or Italian cooking textbook. In fact, a quick browse reveals recipes from around the world, many with an attribution to a close Darina Allen friend, such as Marcella Hazan.

When I saw Darina Allen on the old Sara Moulton show, `Cooking Live' on the Food Network, I had no idea that her Ballymaloe Cooking School was so big and well established to support such a comprehensive volume.

Ms. Allen's general tone in this book follows much the same path as the Chez Panisse guru, Alice Waters in that it strongly emphasizes good, fresh ingredients and a philosophy to waste nothing. Even the most lowly scraps can be recycled in the compost heap or the stock pot.

Unlike Ms. Allen's `The Festive Food of Ireland', I am happy to say that these recipes give all their units in an uncluttered and familiar English system of units, such as pounds and ounces, cups, tablespoons and teaspoons. I was just a bit surprised to see Ms. Allen recommend using standard spoons out of the silverware drawer to measure for savory recipes. On one hand, this is brilliantly simple, since a standard teaspoon (5 ml) is a rounded `teaspoon' and an English tablespoon (20 ml) is a rounded soupspoon. One important difference to note here is that the English (and Canadian) tablespoon is 25% larger than the American tablespoon (15 ml).

The book covers a very broad range of subjects, featuring 24 chapters on stocks & soups; appetizers; eggs; rice, other grains, & legumes; pasta and noodles; vegetables; salads; fish & shellfish; poultry; lamb; pork & bacon; beef; variety meats; game; desserts; cheeses; cakes & cookies; breads, scones & pizzas; jams & preserves; breakfast; barbecue; finger foods; drinks; and sauces.

One of the first things that struck me about this book is that it delves into subject which few if any other cooking texts touch, such as shopping, fashion, kitchen safety, and manners at the table. Many of the book's more conventional sections are a bit off. The `cupboard basics' section violates the notion that you should never buy an ingredient unless you have definite plans to use it in a recipe in the next week. Ms. Allen's list includes things such as dried fruit, Carr's Water Biscuits, Nam Pla (fish sauce), Pesto, and Ballymaloe's own brands of Tomato Relish and Jalapeno Relish. I would make pesto myself and I don't anticipate using nam pla, harissa, tortillas, Carr water biscuits, or chorizo in the next month, and maybe not even in the next year. The same general comment can be made of the `essential kitchen equipment' list. I always go back to Madhur Jaffrey's sound advice to simply make the recipes you want and buy for only those recipes. Sooner or later, you will have built up a pantry and assembly of cooking tools to match your personal style.

I do not weigh this too heavily against Ms. Allen, as she also has great advice on what to do if your power fails on your freezer or if you plan to move and are dealing with a full freezer.

Although this is a text for training future professional chefs, many of the classic recipes are remarkably unfussy. The master recipe for chicken stock cooks for only 3-5 hours, and adds all the vegetables at the beginning of the cooking rather than waiting for the last hour. Similarly, the master recipe for the basic omelet only cites one basic kind of French omelet and leaves out at least one of the fussier steps I have heard from various sources. The recipe for scrambled eggs is also not quite as fussy as the classic French method requiring a double boiler (bain marie).

Some techniques are illustrated with a set of photographs illustrating the steps, but these tend to be small and some major techniques are not so illustrated.

True to the author's emphasis on raw materials and the fact that the school has its own farm for vegetables, eggs, and fresh herbs, the introductory paragraphs to each section are rich in advice on how to pick and use raw materials. The introduction to eggs, one of my favorite subjects, is especially good on identifying the best eggs (how long ago was it laid) for each job.

Overall, this is an excellent reference for all sorts of recipes. I happened to check out the recipe for `basic hamburgers' and found a recipe that exactly duplicated my projected improvement over Julia Child's favorite hamburger recipe. Where Miss Julia has us put sautéed garlic and onion sandwiched between two layers of ground meat, Ms. Allen recommends the sautéed savories be mixed in with the ground meat, together with egg. A surprising touch recommends we also wrap it in caul fat, but this is optional.

One thing you will find in this book that you will not find in a CIA tome is a very personable, comradely tone which almost places Ms. Allen at your right hand as you read through the recipes. That means you will have a lot more fun reading this book than you may with a CIA text.

If you are very new to cooking, I highly recommend this as a first cookbook, especially if your ancestry can be traced back to the Emerald Isle! But, this is much, much more than a cookbook of Irish recipes.

I am a professional chef and have reviewed many cookbooks. This cookbook is one of the best I have ever seen and used. I was so impressed by it that I went and attended the 13 week course at the School in Ireland. The recipes are timeless,delicious,and will work every time if followed properly. This is what cooking should be fresh, beautiful, and nutritious.

The recipes are excellent and interesting, the commentary is informative and educational. The emphasis on seasonality is a good reminder of the real growing cycle of food, and the fairly simple treatment of ingredients highlights the flavor of well grown ingredients.

Heading to Germany for the Football (Soccer) World Cup in June 2006? Take a detour to Berlin and be amazed by the vibrancy and architecture of this new/old city. Reading Ruth Baja Williams' "Detour Berlin" is an excellent introduction to your visit, giving the city a unique flavour from the perspective of a 20-year-long visitor. The former East Berlin is currently being transformed with renovated apartment buildings, stunning new high rises, and everywhere there are trees and parks to soften the built environment. As you wander around Alexanderplatz recall Ruth's experiences there, imagine the life she describes of her friends residing on the `other' side of the Berlin Wall. Visit cosmopolitan department stores, putting yourself in the position of a long suffering 1960 -70s East Berliner attempting to purchase scarce, very basic products. Picture yourself living in West Berlin, separated from family and friends by a forbidding wall. Allow Ruth, through her warm, yet incisive observations, to take you on a journey that will make your own visit so much more meaningful and appreciative of a lifestyle often taken for granted. Ruth's prose is vividly accessible as she generously shares the daily lives of her family and friends in a way that brings a European city into the realm of understanding of a non-European. Do detour!

Ruth Baja Williams memoirs of post-wall pre-unification Berlin are hard to put down. Buy this book and you're guaranteed to be caught up in her vivid storytelling abilities and compelling gifts for observation. In a way, her book also serves as a mini-biography of her husband Charles Williams, one of America's most gifted and creative singers and teachers (he created the role of Sporting Life at the Metropolitan Opera's premier performances of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in 1985).

What a read! Ruth took me to Berlin, placed me in her family, and brought me a rich, honest encounter with a place I knew little about. Thank you Ruth (and Charles) for letting me share your wonderful detour to Berlin.

Ruth has witnessed a period of our modern history which is too little known and understood by much of the supposedly educated Western world - and written so well and thoughtfully about her experiences. We share her disappointments, admire her achievements with the German language, freeze with her, are inspired by the stoicism and even good humour of individuals who have suffered so much in war, feel the warmth of her German friends, can imagine the hassle and frustration of crossing into East Berlin and appreciate the fascination Ruth and Charles had with the events, culture, history, politics and customs of Berlin.

This 20 year detour by an interracial American couple in Cold War Berlin is an interesting, compulsive read which also permits valuable insights into personal interactions within the culturally diverse international community.

A compelling account of a 20th-century love story set in Cold War Berlin. Ruth Baja, a girl from an upper class Philippine background, marries Charles Williams, a black American singer, against her family's wishes. They find themselves in Berlin--temporarily they think--soon after the Wall divides the city. They stay and raise a family while Charles pursues a European career. This is a voyage of political, cultural and personal discovery, told with wit, poignance and grace. You'll fall in love with Ruth and Charles, and with Berlin too.