United Kingdom Books

A must have for all WW II aviation buffs, especially Spit lovers. The photos are awesome and there is plenty technical data to distinguish the various marks, plus combat reports adds a nice touch. A requirement for anyone planning to model the Supermarine Spitfire.

The reviewers before me are right about content but what really does make this book are the STUNNING full colour, high resolution, two page spreads of surviving Spitfires flying inches from the camera plane. You can see the rivets and it is beautiful!

A companion to "Hurricane, a Fighter Legend" by the same authors (and a succesor to 'Spitfire, a Living Legend' by Jeremy Flack?), but a much bigger book, both in the number of pages and in size. And though I love the Hurricane book, I think they did an even better job on the Spitfire. It doesn't just focus on photographs of surviving planes, but also gives a lot of background material. The only difference between the hardcover and the paperback is the covermaterial - and the price -, so don't be fooled in thinking that more money will buy you a better book, if indeed there could be a better photobook about the Spitfire than this one.

This is one of my favorite Spitfire books. It has striking color photography of restored Spitfires in flight. Very current. Very nicely written, it traces the background of surviving aircraft, present ownership etc. It is quite comprehensive. There are a very few flyable Spitfires in the world that are not covered here. J. Campbell "Cam" Martin

Found this book in our library and was excited about learning more of Dick Francis. I did get lost at times when he wrote about the race courses, but it was a thrill to get to know him. It is not a mystery, but there are some questions he still does not know the answer to. He writes a book a year, and I could read 4 or 5 of his books a year if he could write them that fast! Nice read.

This book is a must have for any Dick Francis or horse racing fan. This was the first book of his that i have read and now i have all of his so far. What i was looking for was a book to tell me about this little known sport. Now i know a great deal about it. I'm hoping for a newer version to tell about what has happened since the book waas written. I read the older 1950's or 1960's print with the pictures of Devon Loch in the Grand National. That was what most intrigued me about the story and what made him fall like that. Like i said this is an excellent book and very informative!

My passion for horses and horse racing was apparent even when I was a child. Dick Francis' books allowed me the experiences I dreamed of through his words. I learned more through his books than I could have anywhere else in the United States. It is said that truth is stranger than fiction, and Mr. Francis' autobiography is testimony to that! I now own a 5 year old (retired) Thoroughbred, and Mr. Francis' adventures are in my thoughts!

This book was originally written shortly after Francis' retirement from racing. It chronicles his life in detail up to that point (1957), and all fans of his mystery novels will enjoy seeing the germs of his books in the events of his life. I won't give the really surprising ones away here, but an example is the story in the autobiography of Francis' experience flying during WWII. Readers will understand where he got the knowledge to create several heroes who are pilots. The only reason I don't give this book a 10 is that it is very early Francis--his first book, as near as I can tell, and the quality of the writing as a bit uneven. The edition I read (1982) had no photos--a terrific disappointment, but there were apparently photos in other editions, as Francis refers to them once or twice in the text of the book. Try for a different year! The end of the book is an addendum bringing fans up to date on his life between 1957 and 1981; I've ordered the 1995 edition hoping for a little more added material. If you love horseracing or Dick Francis' books, read this!

This delightful Wodehouse romp is a marvelous mixture of misunderstandings, long lost loves, schemes and impersonations that all resolve well after marvelous comic side trips along the way. The various subplots include an impoverished Lord who longs to escape his family estate and bossy eldest daughter to run a pub with the family cook. Unfortunately though he lacks the necessary two hundred pounds needed for this enterprise and is afraid that his rival and butler will manage to raise the funds and gain the cook's hand in marriage. Meanwhile in London an American millionaire heir is pining for the affections of a beautiful actress who scorns him as long as his father holds the purse strings. Added to this mix is a semi reformed burglar turned butler, a handsome, rich American agent and a missing stamp. Confused? Read the novel and all will be made clear in hilarious detail.

As always with a Wodehouse story this is a wonderful comic romp guaranteed to take the reader from where ever they are to that wonderful Wodehouse fantasy land where all Americans are rich, butlers have never superhuman powers (which they can use for either good or ill), and true love conquers all.

"Spring Fever" is a classic example of P.G. Wodehouse's inimitable style, a story so convoluted in concoction that it actually works. The story begins when Stanwood Cobbold, a millionaire heir with a face like a hippo, is sent to London by his father to keep him from marrying a Hollywood actress. He is escorted by his valet and reformed thief, Augustus Robb, and his friend, Mike Cardinal, the Hollywood agent with the face of a Greek god. Throw into the mix Lord Shortlands, a destitute earl who longs for two hundred pounds so he can marry his cook, his daughter Teresa who wants nothing to do with Mike Cardinal, and his butler who also wants to marry the cook and will stop at nothing to woo her away from Lord Shortlands.

All of the troubles and concerns of these characters intertwine when Stanwood is meant to visit Lord Shortlands at his castle. However, his Hollywood paramour has just arrived in London, and he doesn't want to leave her. Mike Cardinal agrees to visit the castle pretending to be Stanwood so that he can woo Teresa, with her and her father the only ones in the know. But when Mervyn Spink (Lord Shortland's conniving butler) catches on, he springs a plot of pretense of his own involving the real Stanwood Cobbold. As the story progresses, more and more lies need to be told until the reader is uncertain as to how any of this can be wrapped up with all characters satisfied.

"Spring Fever" is a classic comic novel from P.G. Wodehouse. It is a time capsule of a particular era and a portrait of the strictures of British high (although a little cash-strapped) society. Its humor manages to transcend time and tradition, making Wodehouse's writing truly timeless.

This one-off novel, dating from 1948, follows just after a Jeeves novel, Joy in the Morning (1947), a Blandings saga, Full Moon (1947), and just before the excellent Uncle Dynamite (1948) and another Wooster, The Mating Season (1949). Arguably, it stems from the era of Wodehouse at the top of his form. Nevertheless, it seems to be pieced together from a musical comedy, with one of the longest and most unconvincing love scenes in his ouvre, a thin and unlikely plot, and the happy ending repeatedly dished so many times that the deus ex machina tie up seems almost anticlimactic when it comes.

Those would be major problems for most writers, but they are merely small oversights for Wodehouse, since this book yet contains some of his best sustained scenes and most quoted lines. Wodehouse liked it well enough to rehash it as The Old Reliable in 1951. It's almost a Blandings Castle novel, with Lord Shortlands instead of Emsworth, but with far more dialogue, as if written for the stage. Even after the main characters exit to the altar or registry, there are enough loose ends left to fill another novel, which likely suggested The Old Reliable. Not top drawer PGW, but a readable light novel just the same.

Written in P.G.W's inimitable style, Spring Fever has as its principle characters a young man who looks like a greek god and has brains too ( Note: Brains preferring to ignore gentlemen with drop-dead-handsome good looks), a girl with equally good looks but not so sharp a brain, another young man with neither the looks mentioned above nor the brains, also mentioned above, and a Lord, given to uttering sudden exclamations, and not so given to contributing intelligent ideas to any conversation involving himself. Add to this lot of players a daughter hell-bent on keeping her father, the afore mentioned Lord, in proper discipline, a dashing butler with a cunning mind, and a stamp collector husband and you get a simply riotous tale. This tale, as every Wodehouse tale, has his usual ingredients - engagements between 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' being solemnised in every other chapter and broken in the very next, an amazing array of problems being solved equally amazingly as yet another amazin array of P. comes up. Simply lovely. Wodehouse ranks right up there with the best.

If you've ever been to Princeton University, NJ and the Cotswold you'll realize how funny this quote from the book is. Besides interesting tid-bits like this, a more serious allegation by Peter Wright was that the Cuban Missile Crisis was a "set-up," a fabulous Russian disinformation effort in which the Russians actually won! Having lived through this incident I'm firmly convinced that he was right. You'll have to read about it to find out why.

Overall, the book is one of the most interesting spy books I've ever read. It's basic, down-to-earth and showed MI-5 to be a disaster mainly as a result of activities by a few elite, upper-crust, rich, idealistic Oxford/Cambridge (Oxbridge)University homosexuals! All this started in the 1930's and moved into the 50's. What a mess!

It also displays the courage of several men, mainly Peter Wright, to find the truth and act on it. Peter's boss, the head of MI-5, was a spy for Russia, but Peter was relentless in his effort to expose this fact.

If you like spy books you have got to get this one.

Peter Wright was a former assistant director of MI5 (Britain's secret service or counter-intelligence). This is his story of his career, including his anecdotes about his American allies. He joined MI5 as a scientist who specialized in tools for espionage. He had been promised credit for his years as a civilian scientist. When this promise was broken at retirement, he wrote this book to even out things.

This is an interesting book that can't be summarized in a few paragraphs. It is definitely worth reading for the details on government activities in a "democracy". Watergate was a notable failure of such activities. Do these activities continue? Of course!

Pages 158-9 tell of his proposal for a "Bolshevik model" for former colonial countries: let a political party control the army and secret police so that neither the army or another political party could gain control of the government. He pointed out that only those newly created countries that adopted this principle have escaped military dictatorships and civil war.

Does the above advice seem to cynical and radical? But our Establishment DOES control the army and secret police so that neither the military or a populist political party (one not controlled by corporate interests) can gain control.

Yet the classic solution for democracies, from Aristotle to Machiavelli to our Founding Fathers was well-armed citizens and their militia. It has worked well for over over a century, and the idea still survives today.

Well, the Peter Wright who wrote SPYCATCHER is a deceased person. Your side-bar link to, "...an interview with Peter Wright," leads to an interview with a live Peter Wright, not the dead Peter Wright. Right?

this is not a review, but a note to amazon.com

for "spycatcher" by peter wright, you have on the same screen an interview with peter wright. unfortunately for you, Peter Wright-who=wrote-spycatcher DIED a few years ago. He is an ex-spycatcher (cue dead parrot sketch). So please REMOVE your "interview-with-DIFFERENT-PeterWright" link from the spycatcher book page.

I hope this note is sufficiently clear, if not, email me at bg283@ncf.ca thanks, bts

And by the way, I would very much like to write a review of "spycatcher", it is an excellent book, but please take the "interview" link out of the page for this book.... thanks, bts

Avid readers of biographies often note that great men and women in their fields exhibit striking contradictions in their personalities. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), England's greatest landscape painter, is no exception and those contradictions are highlighted in Anthony Bailey's excellent 1997 biography. Notoriously tight-fisted in his dealings in the art world, Turner was equally capable of striking magnanimity towards his few friends. Jealously protective of his paintings, he left dozens of his masterpieces rotting in his gallery at the time of his death, virtually uncared for. Indifferent towards his two, illegitimate daughters, Turner was reported to have burst into tears at the death of a patron. All these characteristics are illuminated in Bailey's fine study. Organized on thematic, rather than on strictly chronological lines, Bailey's portrait emphasizes the man instead of his work, although Turner's major works are not neglected. Like all good biographers, Bailey is also careful to describe his subject in the context of his times, a tumultuous period in western European history. At bottom, though, Turner was a man devoted to his craft and his political awareness appears rarely to have extended beyond the infighting and maneuvering accompanying his long membership in the Royal Academy. There are many specialist studies of Turner's work, but this may be the best portrait yet of Turner. Still, Bailey has not fully penetrated the sources of Turner's unique vision, (perhaps an impossible task),a vision that baffled many contemporaries and placed Turner "out of his time" in much the same way that Blake appears of a different time, out of synch with the poets of his age. This biography is highly recommended to anyone having more than a passing interest in art or art history.

This very well written biography works well on two levels - a portrait of Turner the man, an endearing eccentric, and Turner, the painter, an artist who painted in both an extremely academic style and a visionary and expressive one. Anthony Bailey artfully weaves in and out of the contradictions in Turner's work and his character. Highly recommended.

Anthony Bailey provides the modern reader with a most readable and interesting account of the painter, Turner, and his life. Mr. Bailey, captures the essence of Turner's character and brilliance as a landscape painter. He leads the reader down a path of vivid description and imagery that encourages and entices one to go on and read more. Turner was a creator of illusion and mystique in paintings. He captured the mood and climate of his country in the mist, storms, clouds, sunsets, and sunrises created with his brush. I had the opportunity to buy Standing in the Sun recently in England, and I found it to be an excellent tribute to a fine English painter by a truly gifted English writer, Anthony Bailey.

J.M.W. Turner was a great painter and a very strange man. His genius was recognized early,and he lived well and died rich. He was secretive exhibitionistic,miserly and generous by turns. His works are not too easy to see in the U.S. because he sold well in England and left his paintings to the nation. Bailey has written a superb biography of a man on whom it is difficult to understand. It compares well to his previous biography Rembrandt's House and displays tthe same graceful and lucid prose of his books on sailing,walking,and groeing up in England and America. I read the English edition and recommend this book unreservedly to anyone who likes great art and fine writing. Roger Marz

Ms. Mumm provides important insights to the lives and motives of women in Victorian England who chose to enter the uncharted territory of active religious life in a world which not only frowned upon the notion of an independant woman but also one where it was illegal in the church for a woman to express herself thus. It was amusing to discover the ruses which some Mothers Superior devised to circumvent attempts at episcopal and clerical control. Given the difficulty in procuring access to documentation where it survives her work is an important step to futher understand an often unknown aspect of the not too distant past as seen through the eyes of women. It is all too often assumed that women both Anglican and Roman Catholic chose the cloister simply for pious reasons alone when the true picture was far more complex. This is a book that needed to be written.

I found Susan Mumm's an inspiring overview of early female Anglican orders. I was amazed at their flexibility in membership and was really surprised at the idea you did not have to be a member of the C of E or even a Christian. In addition they demonstrated such open mindedness in not dismissing anyone from their ranks for illegitimate birth. This was unique for a time when appearance and propriety were everything. These women seemed have inherently understood the true goal of life's journey.... the individual's realization of her own salvation in this case, in a community of like minded women.

What I found significant was S. Mumm's inability to get information after, if I am correct, 1915. It appears that these creative women were followed by those less inspired and perhaps more inhibited. I found it tragic.

As a young teen I was inspired by the writings of Mother Kate SSM and her efforts in the slums of London. The early efforts of these women lead to changes in education and nursing and inspired women to achieve outside the confines of the Victorian household. However, that dream appears to have been clouded and eventually lost. Few if any of the orginal Anglican women's orders kept that first creative life and inspiration. That is unfortunate.. but perhaps not.. perhaps they have finished their work or need to hear the sound of the trumpets again.

Often, scholars presume that we "know" x about a particular subject, only to discover that our knowledge is based on half-truths or, worse, mere prejudice. Susan Mumm's project in this book is to rectify our remarkably scrambled understanding of Anglican sisterhoods. Notwithstanding the work of sociologists and historians like John Shelton Reed, Geoffrey Rowell, and Nigel Yates, Victorian Anglo-Catholicism has not been an intellectual growth industry. Mumm's book is both a useful contribution to a not-overcrowded field, and an excellent introduction to a promising area of research.

As she herself admits, Mumm skimps on the theology behind Anglican sisterhoods, dwelling instead on their missions, internal politics, and conflicted relationships with the Protestant mainstream. Contrary to what may be the expectations of some, Mumm finds that "first-wave" Anglican sisters did not necessarily join religious communities out of deep piety; instead, they saw the communities as the best route to careers in fields like administration, teaching, nursing, and social work. Thus, at least in the beginning, the impulse behind such communities could well be dubbed quasi-feminist. By contrast, "second-wave" sisters were far more likely to join out of strictly religious considerations, something that put them into conflict with older members of the community. Not surprisingly, this rise in purely religious vocations coincided with the spread of secular career opportunities for women. Mumm also finds that these sisterhoods were far more successful than their male counterparts, in terms of dedication and pure longevity, and that their missions to the poor have been seriously undervalued by previous scholars of Anglo-Catholic history. Finally, Mumm does a good job laying out the basic Protestant objections to the sisterhoods, which range from the sexist (women were "unfitted" for such independence) to the sexual (sisterhoods were anti-family and anti-marriage).

The only problem with the book is one that was beyond Mumm's power to rectify: many sisterhoods either left no records or refused to allow her access to them. Readers may therefore wonder about the extent to which her sample was actually representative. Nevertheless, this is a minor quibble about an important piece of scholarship.

Religious Life, Victorian-era convents of nuns -- most peoplewould likely jump to the conclusion that this book is about totallyregressive (not to mention repessive) institutions.

Instead, Susan Mumm sets out to examine the phenomenon of a movement situated in an age and time of few opportunities for women, a movement run and directed by women, which offered them more than ample scope to found and direct important institutions, to live independent of the control of men and of families, to decide upon their own lifestyle and establish a corporate life which fostered individuality, education and creativity. Susan Mumm describes surprisingly enlightened practices among Anglican Religious -- members ecouraged to keep up with their reading and their own interests, communities which invested on behalf of each entrant in case she should ever decide to leave, so that an annuity might be provided... Anyone acquainted with a religious order knows how unique each individual in that community is, contrary to common stereotypes: this book is utterly fascinating in that it sketches out how enlightened the administration of Anglican Religious life in the nineteenth century really was. Quite an education! And extremely readable.

A terrific book. This is the best biography of Blake that I know of, and is also one of the most encouraging books I have read in years. Bentley sews together contemporary reports, journals from Blake's friends, and Blake's poems and drawings themselves to form a mysterious--although moving--picture of the man. Blake, upon moving back to the Thames, one day opened his window and reported that he saw the filthy river moving along 'like a gold bar.' From his early years, he claimed to have visions of fairies and angels, and later in life even was able to see William Wallace and Satan (the sketches are included in the book). I know of nothing like Blake, and would give this outstanding biography of him six stars.

This biography concentrates too much on Blake's occupation as an engraver and glosses over his reputation as a poet and visionary. Such a bluntly factual, objective account of Blake seems out of keeping with his spiritual enthusiasm and disdain for the factual (i.e. the physical world). But this book did help me develop an appreciation for Blake. The "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" did not impress me because they seemed to be the epitome of maudlin Christian sentimentality. However, Bentley's biography makes it clear that Blake was not a conventional Christian. I was impressed by the importance Blake placed on the imagination, creativity, and the arts as the true expressions of spirituality and the sublime. I also admire Blake's spirited defense of imagination and the Poetic Genius.

If Blake were alive today I think he would rant against the scholars rather than Empire. The scholars have laid claim to the poet's place in society and the only empire that exists today is the academic empire. Just look at the way a college campus expands and swallows up all the property around itself! It is the scholars who attack men of inspiration and genius because they need to promote poetry as something that can be taught and explicated.

Blake does seem mad when he talks about speaking with angels and spirits but he probably did possess the faculty of a visionary imagination which caused him to express such reverence for the world of imagination, even to the extent of preferring it to the natural world. It reminds me of a quote from Rimbaud, "I came to find my mind's disorder sacred".

This is a very good, straight-forward biography of a mysterious man. Anyone curious about Blake should read it. People who love Blake will still love him, their love enhanced by the very clear context given to the events of his life. Of the visions that are of course the oddest thing about Blake, at least to the vast majority of us who don't have them, the author is neutral. You can't really know. I'm personally for rather than against visionaries even if they are delusional, just because this is indeed the age of fiberglass. Someone said of Blake that he was cracked, but the Light came through the crack. I like to believe he was visited by Milton, Michaelangelo and William Wallace, etc., and that he saw trees full of angels. At the same time, there is a question about the nature of inspiration. Once established, Blake's style in poetry and painting never changed much, only the subjects changed: so the various spirits did nothing in the way of altering his method, nor did they alter his views much, though he seems to have mellowed somewhat. He seems to have been a channel for one Spirit who changed form. There are other artists who seem to me to have represented the world beyond in a more profound way: Bach, Milton, Michaelangelo, Wordsworth for example. And of course, Shakespeare seems to have had a 100 people's combined understanding of how life is. And there are artists, more like us, who seemed to have developed as life progressed.

Still, he was one of the men who lived for and frequently in the electric blessing that changes everything, that power, gift, the angels, like Cupid, seem to bestow as they choose. Blake was a vehicle.

He was the great Outsider artist. He was a Hero of poor England. Thank God for Blake who said, "I live in a hole here, but God has a beautiful mansion for me elsewhere." He was authentic, poor and a real man. Everyone should know how he died singing Hallelujahs and hymns of praise.

The scholarship that works through this book is obviously one of love and devotion of many many years. Bentley's sorting out of events in Blake's life is amazingly well researched - it is the first Blake biography that does not have that usual blur of focus that leaves one more mystified than enlightened. Blake's contemporaries, friends, enemies, patrons, etc. are all given voice through their own extant letters, articles . . - this contextualizes him beautifully and clears the field of critical debris that has grown out over the centuries. In fact, it is Bentley's sober critical eye (of fairness) which is so refreshing - his sense of balance is impeccable. Only a lifetime lover of Blake could hit so consistently true tones. But if you're arriving to this book looking for critical scholarship of the work and myth than you're walking through the wrong door. This book is not about the minutae of the work (see Northrop Frye for that) - it assumes already that one is also a lover and "understander" of the work. This book is about the man - written and informed, of course, by the man's work, but is a book about Blake's life - not a treatise on Urthona. Yes, I recommend this book. Walk on in and stroll around.

This is a story of two men, Mr. Kennedy tells us at the outset, one who loses his wife and baby to murder, is falsely accused and put to death and the other, a vicious, pathetic, seedy serial killer. The labyrinths of the story are thus: Mr. Evans, his wife and baby rent rooms in a doll-sized house in Notting Hill. In this house, on the ground floor are Mr. Christie and his wife. An elderly man also resides here but he is away. Before the bodies of Mrs. Evans and her baby are discovered in the wash house, Mr. Evans turns himself into the police and, although illiterate and possessing the mentality of a 10 year old, confesses twice to the murders. Later he retracts his confession and claims that Mr. Christie committed the murders and that he confessed only to protect Mr. Christie. He explains that Mr. Christie convinced Mr. Evans and his wife that he was an abortionist, that (against his wishes) his wife agreed to undergo Mr. Christie's treatment. Mr. Evans claims to arrive home to find his wife dead but his baby alive. After a couple of days, Mr. Christie tells Mr. Evans that he sent the baby to a couple in East Acton and advises him to flee London. Mr. Evans is tried, found guilty and hanged to death. Several years later, six women's bodies, including that of Mrs. Christie, are discovered at 10 Rillington Place. It becomes obvious that Mr. Evans was telling the truth and was innocent of the murders of his wife and baby. He was wrongfully put to death. His innocence has never been reinstated by the British court.

Mr. Kennedy makes it clear that the crimes are not the only issue here. The major issue is the miscarriage of justice and the further injustice that this mistake has never been officially acknowledged by the British authorities. Poor Mr. Evans, his mother and sisters who lived nearby.

The account of the murders of Beryl Evans and baby Geraldine is thoroughly presented. There is too much consideration for the feelings of the police and judge. Ultimately, the question of how these lawmen could have ignored certain evidence, and tampered with the existing evidence, becomes paramount. In this book, the authorities, even more than Mr. Christie, become the guilty party. Mr. Kennedy does a respectable job of finding excuses for them (as indeed they seem to have found for themselves) in the basic fact that Mr. Evans, a chronic liar and emotionally confused, confessed twice to the crimes but the tampering of evidence makes lame any justification for this misjustice. It is maddening and incomprehensible and upstages Mr. Christie, whose story is another book in itself, totally.

It is no small point that the inside cover of this book is a map of Notting Hill in the 1950s. The neighborhood where Mr. Christie, the Evans's, Mr. Evans's mother and sisters lived, as well as where Christie's other victims frequented, seems to play a part in understanding the emotional pitch of these people and their lives, presenting a banal but murky background to the horrors that took place.

This is an excellent true crime account. It fascinates and enrages the reader and serves to clear the name of an innocent man who could hardly have understood what was happening to him. The fact that one wonders about the souls of these unfortunate people, victims, criminal and lawmen, is the greatest achievement of this book.

When Timothy Evans met John Christie in 1950's London neither was to know how they would forever change each other's destiny. This factual account of one of Britain's most notorious serial killers and the man who was wrongly executed in his stead is a seering condemnation of police ineptitude and judicial bungling. Author Ludovic Kennedy has left no stone unturned in his exhaustive and penetrating investigation of how one man was rushed to the gallows and another went free to kill repeatedly. Evans' story is filled with pathos while Christie is revealed to be a monster of chilling amorality. A film of this story, starring John Hurt and Richard Attenborough, beautifully captures the atmosphere of the period, but it is this staggering book which documents the events with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

Ludovic Kennedy gives a brilliant account of the life of the infamous Serial Killer, and of the man he framed for murder.

One of the best stories I've ever read. Being a true crime story, the truth is really stranger than fiction. This book was beautifully written and I've read it several times. The movie with John Hurt and Richard Attenborough from 1970 is also excellent, but the book describes the details better than a movie can.

This book is a misery memoir of the highest order. The story of an activist who, galvanised into socialism as a young man in the late 70s, the very same period when the ideology was lurching around in its death throes, decided to devote his life to the Labour Party. John O'Farrell was no ambitious Blairite politico though. He fought his battles at the low end of the totem pole - trudging miles of godforsaken streets delivering leaflets, attending tedious meetings in grubby halls where left wing worthies tied themselves in knots with their own political correctness. All this could descend into a self righteous polemic. But the crucial, vital saving grace is the book's humour.

O'Farrell tells of the looks he gained in working class pubs by lunk headed Sun readers when he tentatively voiced his opposition to the Falkland's war. His guilty admission after the Brighton bomb that he wishes Thatcher had actually kopped it. The wishful, naive optimism on the eve of every general election only to wake up with a head pounding hangover and the Tories in power -again! The brutal asceticism and self-abnegation that prevented him from enjoying pretty much anything.

Nowadays, O'Farrell has done a New Labour type maturation himself - he lives a comfortable life as a metropolitan Guardian columnist and broadcaster. New Establishment as it were. But he can still laugh at the grim old days. The Conservatives might have won all the elections in the 1980s - but Labour trounced them at the humour polls. Very funny.

What happened to all those people who thought smiling was right wing, and whose activism consisted of making others feel inadequate? They were just waiting for you to be slightly out of line about Nicaragua or a teeny bit frivolous about gender stereotypes. One slip and they'd give you their best sneer - in spades. Politeness was also right wing. Yes, things got better. This joyless crowd melted away, morphed into new people, or else herded into colleges of higher education and social work departments to waste public money on endless meetings. But I shall never forgive!

This book is hilarious. And so true. If you were an unhappy camper during the Thatcher years in the UK--or are filled with dread by the recent onset of unfettered Republican control in the US you should read this book. The author was a writer on the political satire show SPitting Image in the 1980s and boy does it show. Laugh out loud quality in many part and filled with so unspoken truths. Great stuff.

Essential therapy for anybody who supported the Labour Party through eighteen years the of Conservatives Ruling Britain. We feel that O'Farrell was right there with us as pre-election optimism dissolved into miserable failure again and again and again.

Over the years his radical edge is softened by age and cynicism. The vegetarian succumbs to the bacon sandwich. The dedicated capaigner pays the au pair to deliver his election leaflets. The words of the chant have changed - 'What do we want? A winter flowering clematis! When do we want it? Before we lay the patio!'

Is it similar changes which made the Labour Party electable again?

His description of the unforgettable election night of 1997 is the highlight. The defeat of Michael Portillo described as dramatically as the scoring of a winning goal in the Cup Final. Could we ever get?

But did things really get better?

I HAVE LISTENED WITH GREAT INTEREST TO THE HISTORY OF THIS HEMISPHERE HAVING DROPPED THE SUBJECT AT SCHOOL THROUGH SHEER BOREDOM. SO MUCH ITS CONTENT HAS HAD ME AMAZED.

I was totally captivated! What an incredible, sweeping history, sumptuously written and produced; rich by far in audio than if it were produced on film. Bravo BBC! At one point I even briefly understood the English soccer hooligans - after all, rampaging around the Continent thumping foreigners is only what their predecessors have done for 1000 years! With an incredibly rich and diverse history and an incalculable contribution to the world's culture (hooliganism excepted!), Britons almost have the right to be admired and to be what they are not - arrogant and boastful. We must admire too, their charm, wit and self-effacing modesty. A tip of the hat from California!

I am almost ashamed to admit that the book version of this title sat on my bookshelf for a year, as I thought it would be a very cumbersome read. Recently I picked up a CD version, of the title, from my local library. (There are approximately 10 CD's, each covering approx. 200 years of history). Now I am devouring the book, wondering why I waited so long to read it. I have borrowed & re-borrowed the CD's from the library, & I listen to them at home over & over again. What I particularly like about this title is the way the author refers to contemporary documents relevant to the time in history being covered. Christopher Lee has taken a subject which, in other's hands, can sometimes be flat & 'dry', & he has created a masterpiece. If you have even the slighest interest in history I urge you to either read the print version of the title, or if you can't get your hands on that beg or borrow a copy, in either print, on tape, or on CD. You WON'T be disappointed. I only wish someone would produce a masterpiece of this calibre for 'other' history e.g. French, Italian etc Oh, & BTW, 'This Sceptred Isle - Twentieth Century' has just hit the shelves in Australia. I have already purchased my copy. I expect it will be every bit as good as '55BC - 1901'

Given sets of these tapes as a holiday gift, I was slowed in my enthusiasm toward the givers. Facing a long drive, with ample entertainment backup, I listened to the first of many tapes. Could history on tape possibly subvert popular culture and current events ? I have now listened to these tapes more than 6 times. The presentation, content, and most of all attitude of the material is addictive. The BBC should be commended again for their quality educational products, and their significant contributions toward restoring the positive reputation of the British people. I HIGHLY recommend purchasing these tapes for yourselves and your children's enlightenment.