Oceania Books

I found this to be a well written and extremely interesting collection of "real war stories". It was gratifying to read the combat, as well as the "backwater" stories of the people who carried the fight to the enemy in the Pacific theater. Full of simple stories, as well as full of harrowing bloody accounts, the book brings to life a sense of how the complete war was fought from the individuals viewpoint. Highly recommended, an easy read.

If you want to share very vivid rememberances of what it was like in the Pacific, this is the book to buy! Wonderful stories you can't put down. You will feel transported there. A must read.

I thought this book created a comprehensive overview of the war in the Pacific. So much attention has been given to the war in Europe, it was nice to get a better understanding of what so many overlooked veterans experienced. The author did an excellent job of gathering information and stories to help the reader see the war from many perspectives.

THE FACT THAT THE 13TH AIR FORCE WAS WAS NOT MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK INDICATES THAT OLIVER NORTHS REFERENCES WERE FLAWED. I SERVED IN THE 13TH AIR FORCE AND FLEW B24'S ON MISSIONS TO RABAUL,BALIKAPAN, MINDINAO, LUZON, AND SEVERAL AGAINST THE JAPANESE FLEET. OUR LOSSES ON OUR BALIKAPAN RAIDS WERE AS MUCH AS 50 PERCENT OF OUR AIR CRAFT AND CREWS. WE OPERATED FROM LEA NEW GUINEA AND ANOTHER ISLAND NOT MENTIONED " MOROTAI". OUR 307TH BOMB GROUP WILL HAVE THEIR EVERY TWO YEAR REUNION IN SEATTLE AUGUST 23, TO 26, 2006.

World War II is now sixty years old. The commanders, older than the troops have passed on. The stories that are left to be told have to come second hand, or from the troops themselves, the young men that carried the rifles, drove the tanks, or more likely did the thousand and one other tasks that make a modern military work. Regardless of their assigned task, an awful lot of these people came under attack somewhere, they were captured and in prison camps for years, and these at least came back to tell their tale. Often they had held inside what they had seen and done.

Here are the recorded stories of 70 veterans of the pacific war. This is not the big story of how the Marines went in at Tarawa, learned about how to invade, polished it up, and went on to win the war. Instead this is the story of the marine that goes ashore on Guadalcanal a month after the first invasion, he eventually goes up to the combat line. He never sees a Japanese solder. This is the flyer who is sent to the hospital with malaria and misses the battle. These are the people who won the war. I am reminded of the line from John Milton: "They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait."

These are fascinating stories from people we'll never meet.

Written with insight and humor, Audrey McCollum's thoughtful work reflects the struggle of a group of women of color to attain personal and economic power. It also chronicles the growth of an extraordinary friendship between McCollum, a white American psychotherapist, and Pirip Kuru, a remarkable Papuan woman whose persistance, despite limited education and virtually no resources, has changed the lives of many others in Papua New Guinea. Equally important is the author's personal story, intertwined with Pirip Kuru's, which reveals not only the deepening of McCollum's understanding of Pirip's life and circumstances, but of her own life as well. Brief but useful bibliography; glossary; index. A valuable resource for general readers and students of anthropology and women's studies.

Two Women Two Worlds by Audrey McCollum is a very enjoyable read. It made me smile, made me sad, it held my interest. The geographical descriptions along with wonderful photos let me see a part of the world I know I will never see in person.

One might expect "Two Women, Two Worlds" to be informative and enlightening, and it is. I was unprepared for it to be so thoroughly entertaining. The story, stitching through several visits by the author to Papua New Guinea over more than a decade, is a page- turner.

Life in the high country of Papua New Guinea is unimaginable to those of us who inhabit the Western World. Brilliantly described by Audrey McCollum, the people and their lifestyle become vivid and close. What a revelation to find that Pirip, a woman from a primitive culture half way around the world, has many of the same priorities that I do, both in terms of sense of self and quality of life.

The author, a highly educated and sophisticated woman, generously shares with Pirip, and with us, her readers, her own difficult human experiences. In fact, Audrey's challenges seem to help her relate to Pirip's uphill struggle, as she tries to effect change in her male dominated society.

Let me hasten to say, however, that this is not just a "women's book." My husband picked it up and couldn't put it down. "Two Women, Two Worlds" is well worth reading. There's enjoyment on every page, and a great deal to be learned along the way.

The author, a Manhattanite psychotherapist now a long-time resident of New Hampshire, has made many trips to Papua New Guinea over a period of years. Accompanied by her doctor husband, these have also been journies of self-discovery. She meets Pirip, a leader in the new PNG feminist movement and their lives intertwine. Papua New Guinea is changing rapidly as Western civilization encroaches with very uneven results. There are many descriptions of ceremonies such as weddings revolving about brideprice, living conditions, and clothing or lack therof-'as gras'. People are depicted as very real to the reader rather than as exotic 'natives'. There are also many vivid color photographs. The author brings maturity, and insight to this new world. This is a valuable book for adventurous travelers who might like to plan a trip that goes beyond the ordinary to connect to a local culture.

Author McCollum has written a perceptive and fine account of her relationship with a PNG woman, Pirip.The book is based on seven years of repeated visits to PNG accompanied by her husband, a retired medical school dean. She describes her growing relationship with Pirip as one from which they both learned and profited enormously. She expertly weaves together the subtle, and not so subtle problems she encounters (feminism, "progress", the enviroment, men's issues). The book is enhanced by carefully selected photographs. This book was a pleasure to read.

This is a fictional story but it is based on a real family living in a remote part of the Australian rain forest. You can only take a boat to the beach during high tide and you need to know how to navigate the reef. Unfortunately the reef is not as spectacular as it used to be. The water is not as clear because there has been run off from road construction.

Luckily the forest surrounding the homestead is all protected park land now. However, there are still outside factors that can affect the health of the water and the forest. I think this is a wonderful book and the content is age appropriate. We live in a world we have to protect and we need to honor our children by being truthful with them. The artwork is beautiful and rich and the story is closer to reality than one might think.

A boy journeys through the rain forest and begins to fantasize about the plants and animals that lived there millions of years ago. At the end of the day, he begins to wonder how it could change in the future.
The forest in this story really exists in Australia. The artist uses relief collages for the illustrations in this book. Many of these "collage constructions" have been exhibited in art galleries around the world. This story makes the reader think about how civilization can affect Mother Nature. Finding the hidden pictures is sure to delight readers of all ages.

This fictional story shows a white father and son taking a day trip to an island off the coast of Australia. The island is rainforest. The boy and his father enjoy the wilderness surroundings. The boy plays by exploring the rainforest alone and using his imagination to think about the creatures that inhabited this place in years gone by. The illustrations are creative as they show the imagined creatures as transparent. I loved the use of illustration in this way as we "see" what the boy was imagining. The story is very nice until the end. When the boy and his father are preparing to leave for the day, the next scene shows the future when the whole island is over-populated with tourist attractions and it shows two children sitting and eating in front of a TV set. This scene is in the imagination as the buildings and such are shown in transparencies.

I loved the story until the end. I think we need to think carefully what thoughts and concepts we are putting into our children's heads. This book is for ages 4-8 and is a picture book. Can we let them have some innocence and wonder before they learn of rainforest destruction? I don't recommend this book unless you skip the last page entirely! At what age is it appropriate for a child to be worrying about destroying rainforests in the name of tourism? My issue with the book is that it gets the reader excited about the Australian rainforest then gives them a punch by warning of rainforest destruction. This is a book with a message, it is obviously written to get children to to worry about serious envionmental threats at a (TOO) young age.

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This is one of Jeannie Baker's early books, first published in 1988. It's good to see that it is still in print.

"Where The Forest Meets the Sea" is truly a work of art. It is an ideal companion to her most recent work "The Hidden Forest". It is fascinating to see how her style and technique has evolved and become increasingly sophisticated over the past 12 years.

Jeannie has an unashamedly environmental message to deliver, with her simple story lines dealing with the fragility of very special, ecologically unique areas. She doesn't push too hard with the rhetoric but lets her beautiful, ultra-lifelike, 3 dimensional images provide the perfect supporting context.

Having recently seen an exhibition of Jeannie's work that provided the images for "Hidden Forest" it is clear that it is the visual power of the images that is the most effective means of convincing people of the value of a particular environment.

In the dark forest scenes there are hidden dinosaurs and aboriginal figures providing a mystical quality to the book. The message that comes through is the timelessness of the natural environment.

We are reminded at the end of the book of the potential for man to radically change the environment for the worse. It takes books like this to provide us with insights and observations that will prevent this from happening.

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Jeannie Baker is a collage artist, and has created a beautiful book from a huge array of natural materials. The photographic illustrations of the collages have enormous texture.

An Honour Book in the Australian Children's Picture Book of the Year awards. It conveys a message of the need to care for the natural environment, and warns against the over-development of wilderness areas. Raises important issues in the most exquisite way.

Well-loved by children, and deserving of a place in every school, public and home library.

A beautiful depiction of an exquisite wilderness, the Daintree Rainforest of far north Queensland.

Also recommended for older children and adults who enjoy and appreciate innovative illustration and the art of children's books.

The late Sarah Murgatroyd has written a well researched and poignant account of this tragic expedition. Though l hesitate to use the word expedition, as it was poorly led and planned, perhaps a mad rush in the bush is a better description. Many times as a child l used to gaze at the statue of Burke and Wills, (Melbourne is my home town), when l visited the Museum and wondered how they died and why was that statue there. My schoolbooks portrayed them as tragic heroes, but l felt sorry for John King as these books seemed to minimize his achievement of survival

This book finally gives King the credit he deserves for his amazing survival and the tenacious ability he displayed to achieve this. Unfortunately his health was broken by the experience and he suffered much mental angiush for the remainder of his short life. This anguish, l suspect, derived from the charade he was forced to be a part of upon his return to Melbourne.

He was very critical of the Exploration Committee on the way back to Melbourne after his rescue but was stunned by the reception he received in Victoria on the way back to Melbourne where he was lauded as some type of hero. It was just too much for this quiet and unassuming man. He had to play along and hold his true thoughts about the Exploration Committee to himself. He was up against too much public emotion and powerful interests to upset the applecart, l also believe he felt very guilty about his survival.

This book captures the vastness and emptiness of the Australian interior and yet also describes the beauty of the outback. I have lived in the outback myself while working at remote weather stations. The description of the climate, landscape and vegetation of the part of the outback that the expedition traversed is concise and correct.

This book also gives an account of the expeditions of the explorer; the very able and resourceful John Macdouall Stuart and gives him the credit he richly deserves as a an explorer and a surveyor.

Like the trek it describes, 'Dig Tree' is almost successful. There's no denying that a lot of research went into this book, and in some ways, that's what holds it back. It's almost like Ms Murgatroyd is afraid to leave anything out.
The book also has too many editorial gaffes--wrong tenses, left out words--they're minor, but annoying. Whether or not they are the author's is beside the point, they should have been caught.
I'd certainly keep this on my Burke & Wills shelf--but the classic for me is Alan Moorehead's 'Cooper's Creek.'
Although I doubt Moorehead had access to all that Murgatroyd did, he still manages to tell the story with a great deal more panache.

The book describes the (unfortunate) journey of Burke and Wills and gives a good overview of other explorers of Australia. The author has a great ability to recreate mid-19th century Australian life and views. Overall, this is a superbly researched book that captivates the reader.

An excellent read that both informs and entertains. Ideal for anyone who has interest in Australia, Australian history or exploration. It may not be that interesting for those without these interests

Sarah Murgatroyd does a terrific job of assembling a compelling story of a doomed expedition across Australia. She carefully pulls together pieces from diaries, old news accounts, and official records, and even throws in insights into human and camel physiology when necessary.

The story moves along with interesting characters and sometimes heartbreaking events. Importantly, Murgatroyd grounds everything in historical research, giving her account valuable credibility.

If there's a weakness in this book it is only because the author does so well bringing the reader close to the events. You want the book to go one further step and recreate the conversations among the explorers, but of course it cannot do that.

This is a great book for anyone interested in adventure or Australian history.

Australia's desolate interior evokes much legend. Dominating the legends are the traverses of European explorers in the region. Among these legends, that of Burke and Wills retains a lofty status, one Sarah Murgatroyd may have forever toppled. She has given the tradition of explorer heroics a strenuous airing with this book. Few reputations are left unsmirched, but her real assault centres on the incompetence of the expedition's leader, Robert O'Hara Burke.

The author relates how Burke left Melbourne, Victoria, in 1860 with several ambitions, muddled instructions and devoid of capabilities to manage the task. Behind his straggling team were a cabal of businessmen intent on extending Victoria's borders. Beyond that, they also hoped to initiate a telegraph line route to Asia, thence to London. In competition with Adelaide to the west, both cities had sponsored expeditions to traverse the continent from south to north. Others had made the attempt, but the travails of crossing a land intolerant of blundering had thwarted them all. Burke was aware of a major competitor in the figure of Charles McDouall Stuart who had nearly succeeded before turning back. Burke, among other things, saw the enterprise as a race - which he intended to win.

Murgatroyed demonstrates how that aspect, among others, doomed the expedition from the beginning. Burke's undue haste led to launching the trek at the worst time of year. He quarreled with subordinates, sacked members of the team and scorned delays occasioned by scientific studies. His fatal error was in dividing the group, ultimately leaving most of his companions behind to make a dash to the northern sea. It was the fragmenting of the expedition that led to conflicting priorities and delays. In the end, not able to actually observe the sea, three survivors of the dash north returned to the rendezvous point to find the word "Dig" carved in a tree. It wasn't enough to save the two leaders surviving the journey.

In analysing Burke's actions, Murgatroyd contrasts them with others, some having set out to rescue the lost venturers. As she points out, the business leaders of Melbourne enhanced the already general view that the only thing considered more "heroic than a successful explorer was a dead one." Melbourne now had two in Burke and his subordinate William Wills. The legend of their heroism was almost manufactured by those who'd sponsored the expedition. The hagiography surrounding the pair has persisted in strength for over a century.

Murgatroyd dispels that idolatry effectively. She cannot be faulted for viewing the past with modern eyes as some are led to do. As a journalist's account, the book is not footnoted, although she provides a good reading list. Her style is open and forthright, keeping the reader close to the events related. She speculates but little, and her judgements are conveyed in sharp contrast. Various persona are portrayed in scathing terms. Even those driven by events escape but narrowly. Her account will dismay some, but none sink into ennui. Her rendition of a complex story makes excellent reading. Her loss to journalism is severe.

Lucy Irvine is a deeply underestimated author,perhaps because of her exotic and unsettled life. Her examination of the culture of Pigeon Island is extraordinarily sensitive. She is unsparing and intense in her search for the truth that underlies the Hepworth's relationship with the inhabitants of this Pacific corner and, by extension, all cultures with an unknown counterpart. Lens-like,she misses nothing that is humane or fragile or beautiful. This was my favorite book for a very long time. For a while,Irvine was living in a remote corner of Scotland and now appears to be living in the Balkans.Whatever comes from her pen next is sure to be remarkable.

Another gripping real life adventure by Lucy Irvine.She really manages to be empathetic with a wide range of cultures as well as remaining unusually self-aware. The interweaving of her current experience on a remote island with the life histories of the English couple who settled there and the local inhabitants is really fascinating.

Faraway is a biography about Tom and Diana Hepworth who after WWII decided to trade the UK for a paradise in the sun, i.e. Pigeon Island in a remote province of the Solomon Islands. This story is mainly based on the diaries of Tom Hepworth and written by Lucy Irvine, who spend a year in the island for research and had an earlier island living experience as written down in Castaway. The story learns that living in a tropical paradise is actually very hard labour to keep it up. Besides practical and distance related problems, troubles with the locals and local traditions are continues problems to be dealt with. In case of the Hepworths, a stiff upper lip, working hard and unquestioned love for each other and sticking to all that is what keeps the dream going, but at a price. As this way of life was dream of choice for Tom and especially Diana, it wasn't for their children. The way the daughter's mental condition is being dealt with, as in: it'll be alright as long as we put our minds to it, is a bit of a metaphor for the story as a whole.

As commissioned by Diana Hepworth, the book was meant as a realization of a never fulfilled ambition of Tom Hepworth to write a book about the life and times of their dream. The Hepworth story is alternated by Irvine's own account of living on Pigeon Island together with her sons. This enlivens the book with an extra storyline, plus it allows Irvine to take a more personal (and needed) look at the Hepworth story. Because of this, despite everyone having their problems, you can't help having a lot of respect for all involved, especially Diana. Although the book focuses a lot on family relations and emotions, it's a very well written book that ought to be ranked high in Pacific literature.

Lucy Irvine is enlisted by the strong-willed Diana Hepworth, who has been living on Pigeon Island for the past 40 years, to live for one year on Pigeon Island and write her story.
Lucy, not one to be pushed around herself, takes her three sons to the island and records Diane and Tom's story of sailing around the world for ten years and then settling on Pigeon island to raise a family in paradise.
The book is a combination of Lucy's year on Pigeon Island with the Hepworth's experiences there. She pulls no punches, presenting the bad with the good. Photos are included of the family, the local islanders and Lucy and her sons. It's a fascinating story and very compelling reading. Her dreamy descriptions of the warm water and sun made me long for the sea. I was under the book's spell until I could finish it.

Having had the experience of 3 weeks on Pigeon Island in 1996, I read the book with fascination. It certainly brought memories back. I wish I could have added my stories for background information. I found the book very real and very sympathetic to the individual personalities. I can also vouch for "Lucy getting it right". Well done.

Both my wife and I found this book to be very inferior to other guide books on Australia (eg Rough Guide is far superior in our opinon). The Moon Handbook gives just basic information on tourist sites which is okay, but it doesn't go into anything out of the ordinary. I bought the book because of the positive reviews and the recent edition (late 2005) - both of which were the wrong reasons to buy. The book is not worth lugging around Australia.

I bought a number of guides to Australia and studied each before leaving. They were all helpful in planning my trip, but Australia Handbook stood out for its coverage of the country in general as well as all the usual hotel and restaurant recommendations. As well as balancing this coverage, I found the book to be up to date and, with everywhere I traveled, anyway, coverage was thorough. Many guidebooks I have used in the past concentrate on the big cities, but this one led me further afield to the kind of places only locals would usually know about. By the end of my trip I was relying almost entirely on it for places to stay and eat, and couldn't find a fault in the choices provided.

I highly recommend this book to anyone traveling to Australia.

I bought several traveler information type books before my transcontinental trip to Australia last year. This was BY FAR the best! After only a few days, I "packed" the others away.

this book was a saving grace in my journeys of Australia. Before leaving America I was on drugs but after reading The Australia Handbook my life was changed. I am now 6 months substance free and madly searching for the wonderful young author or fisherman on pg.218 to make my life complete

We purchased this book before leaving for a six-week trip Downunder. It contained all the information we needed for pretrip planning as well as wealth of information on the country itself. Once in Australia I found it an indispensible aid for choosing what we wanted to see in the limited time we had. The accommodations and restaurants recommended were also spot on, and it was obvious to us as soon as we started traveling that the book is extremely well-researched.

Australia is truly a wonderful place, so it may sound cliched, but this book really helped make our trip everything we had dreamt of. I highly reccomend this book to anyone heading Downunder. It is well worth the investment.

J.C. Beaglehole has brought to life in this book, not only the greatest seaman and navigator ever, but a man that should be revered as a perfect showcase of human quality. The book is very long and detailed, but provides vast information of Captain James Cook and his voyages that added to our knowledge of geography, oceanography, biology, astronomy, navigation, health, and humanity. I recomend everyone old and young, of every ethnic background to read this book. In the end, the reader sees that it wasn't his accomplisments that made him famous, but his awesome moral beliefs of modesty, chastity, temperence, faithfulness, steadfastness, truth, honesty, loyalty, discilpline, and passion that define the very finest example of how to live as a human being.

The Life of Captain James Cook by Beaglehole is the book that I have been searching for a long time. For some reason, one of the greatest explorers and navigators in history never had a comprehensive biography written on. In a very short series of partial accounts, Beaglehole's book stands out as the most comprehensive biography ever written about cook. It is apparent that Beaglehole spend several years in researching, and the result is admireable in its depth and capacity. Although the book is sometimes hard to read, beacuse of the many details, it is still worth going through. Many unknown facts about Cook are being revealed, which throw a whole new perspective about his life .The author also did a good job in recreating the atmosphere of the life on an explotation ship, and putting Cook's explorations in the historical context. For lighter reading, I guess that Richard Hough's book is easier to read, but if you want the whole story, this is the book to read.

This is a tome which occassionally tells you just a little more than you really want to know about the three great voyages to the Pacific, but anyone seriously interested in the western penetration into the Pacific will want to read this book. It is also an articulate and formidable defense of Cook's character, seamanship, and wisdom. While Cook is not quite so venerable now in a time of great sensitivity to the depradations western invasion inflicted on indiginous people, this book presents us with an undoubtedly great man interested not in conquest but in geography, exploration, discovery, science, anthropology and peaceful relations between cultures. The aftermath was a tragedy, (see Alan Moorehead's The Fatal Impact) but Cook was simply too high-minded and short-sighted to forsee what would come after. Cook was for better and worse a man of his time--and it was an age of enlightenment--an exemplar of the period of science, exploration and adventure. He was of course a cold fish and hard to cosy to, but there is much to admire in this brilliant portrait of the man and his age.

New Zealand historian J. C. Beaglehole was perhaps the 20th century's foremost authority on European exploration in the Pacific. The main results of his long and distinguished career were "Exploration of the Pacific" and "Life of Captain James Cook". In preparation for writing the Life, he produced the definitive modern editions of the Journals of Captain Cook (4 volumes) and the Endeavour Journals of Jospeh Banks (2 volumes).
An understanding of Cook and the voyages must begin with Beaglehole.

There is no doubt that this is the definitive biography of the renowned Captain Cook. For no other reason, persons with an interest in the greatest navigator of all time should read this work. While few details of his life outside of his three major expeditions have been retained, this book brings to life the Captain that sailed the world on his three voyages, including his personality, his foibles, his leadership, and his intellect. He was indeed a man with many admirable qualities.

So why only three stars? While the book is well researched and well organized, it is not well written. Far too often, a jumble of words is presented as a substitute for a sentence. If Beaglehole could write clearly, this would certainly be a 5 star work. On the other hand, sadly enough, a clear writing style has not always been the hallmark of a professional historian.

While Turnbull usually tells about historical persons and events - this time he wanders off into fiction...

About half of the book is rather good, telling the reader about the real ninjas of past - i.e. normal samurai and peasants working as spies and undercover agents (without special equipment or silly black uniforms)...
...while the other half of the book is about the fictional black clad super martial artists (i.e. the Hollywood and Japanese Iga/Koga-province tourist version).

Those of you who can think for themselves probably understands how silly the whole concept with special "Ninja-swords" etc. is, considering they were supposed to act undercover...

To make one thing perfectly clear: Ninjas (as we know them) are a myth, no such individuals ever existed. They were made up in the last hundred years, to give samurai (in movies and TV-series) suitable adversaries.

Later on people understood that there were money to be made on the Ninjas - Martial art systems were invented (mixing existing traditions) and movie companies in the west started to use Ninjas as Bad (and sometimes Good) Guys. The Swedish Film "The Ninja Mission" being the first to place Ninjas in a modern setting.

I do understand, and even respect, that mr Turnbull sacrifices truth in order to sell more of this book (as I understand him reusing Samurai material in dozens of similar books - I have atleast ten...).

In short, despite this book mixing fact and fiction it is a good book on the subject.

most books from the Osprey Publishing to well to educate thoroughly on a matter in history, this one was no different.

This is a fascinating and easy-to-read book about the ninja and shinobi of Japanese history. And it should be noted I say "history" for a reason; Stephen Turnbull explains in the introduction that he took great lengths to make sure his sources were accurate and that he stayed away from the legends of myths accompanied with ninja. He'll mention ninja kites, but not ninja glides...and forget about the human bomb ninjas you saw in the kung fu movie "Duel to the Death."

The book presents diagrams and detailed explanations of the different equipments and tactics used by ninja, and also gives some insight into their history, including their war with Oda Nobunaga and their eventual service with the Tokugawa Shogunate (there is a very interesting reason as to why they joined the Tokugawa so willingly). The most fascinating part was the tale of how a ninja killed Uesugi Kenshin - this was by sticking a spear into him while hidden in the toilet (I won't go into graphic detail). It's a strange (and darkly humorous) tale, but Turnbull eventually dismisses it as legend using evidence that Kenshin died of stomach cancer.

Overall I enjoyed this read. It was a very educated look into the world of ninja from a neutral perspective, but I found it to be a good read. Another fine reason why my respect for the Osprey series remains high.

Military historian Steven Turnbull does an excellent job of portraying historical ninjas in this thin volume. A lot of the book on ninjas cover either ninja legends or "ninjitsu" which is a kind of reconstructed martial art which is practiced mainly by American ninja fans and Japanese who are working at ninja theme parks. Turnbull strips all this away and shows us what an authentic ninja was like. The real ninja was a mercenary who specialized in espionage, sabotage, and assassination. The image of a black-clad ninja is perhaps inaccurate. The point of espionage is not to get noticed, so ninja were more likely to be dressed as everyday people in order to infiltrate towns and castles. There are, however, lots of illustrations and photos of black-clad ninjas. Perhaps undercover ninjas are not so interesting to look at. The time period covered is 1460-1650 which was the golden age of ninjas, and which roughly corresponds to the Sengoku (Warring States) period of Japanese history. After this time period, Japan was in a state of peaceful unification and isolation which rendered the ninjas obsolete.

One great point of this book is that it introduces the excellent ninja museum in Iga-Ueno in Mie prefecture. I've visited this museum and they have a ninja house and a wonderful collection of fascinating ninja tools. The highlight of visiting the museum is the excellent ninja show. If you visit the Osaka or Kyoto area, and you have an extra free day, I recommend that ninja fans visit this place and check it out.

I love this book! It strips away all the mythology and stuff we think is true because its in the movies and examines the historical shinobi ('ninja'), his role, training, tactics, motives, and his equipment. I cannot believe how many tools they had for getting into castles and killing their victims. One of the last sections of the book, 'Ninja in War' tells the heroic story of real life ninja and their involvement in the campaigns of the Sengoku Jidai Period. Interestingly, the author says that the ninja often disguised themselves as monks or enemy samurai, yet of the 48 ninja depicted in action in the plates, all but two are clad in the classic black ninja garb. The plates are also very good, and the plate commentary has helped me in my study of the ninjas' tools. The best book I have read on the subject, highly recommended for anyone seeking to read about the real ninja.

This book successfully conveys the excitement of discovering music, films and pop icons for the first time in your teens. Recalls the dreams of your teens, when you thought you could be anything in life. I love, love, love this book.

Set in Melbourne, Australia, this new novels spins on the axis of an oft-told story about a friendship between a small group of girls falling apart. But the edges -- and edginess -- of the story kick back any cliché. Gem, Mira, and Lo set themselves apart from others by their dress, their interests, but mostly their commitment to the Ug project. Ug is short for underground, and their holiday project is to create an underground film, similar to Warhol's sixties cinema experiments. While hipsters in their own right, the girls look to the past for cultural clues. There's a lot going on here: subplots about Gem's family, her crush, her desire to lose her virginity, as well as the story of the Ug project. Yet, another core story anchors it all: the teen search for identity. Gem's not sure who she is, pretty sure who she doesn't want to be, and through friends, family, and fringe culture, tries to find her true self in a very strange time.

Notes from the Teenage Underground by Simmone Howell shows life through the eyes of a young Australian filmmaker. The more Gem works on her film, the more she learns about her friends -- and about herself.

The book focuses on the personal side of the filmmaking process rather than the technical side. This is about the girl, not the brand of camera she uses. There's something utterly delightful about Gem's take on things - fairly straightforward, totally accepting, and extremely thoughtful.

This book is realistic and comfortable without ever feeling dated or overwrought. It would have felt contemporary ten or fifteen years ago, and it probably will still feel comfortable five or ten years from now.

The author summed up the book perfectly: "Notes is a YA book about underground films, outsider girls, dodgy boys, art happenings and friendship freakouts."

NOTES FROM THE TEENAGE UNDERGROUND is a fantastic debut novel! It starts out with three best friends, Gem, Lo, and Mira, trying to come up with ideas for their summer project. The summer before was their Satan Summer; they dabbled in all things occult. The summer project has a theme, goals, and guides. This year, they want to do something spectacular; it could be their last summer project--who knows what the future will bring?

Lo is usually the one with ideas, but this time, Gem has some ideas of her own. Their theme for the year is Underground, whatever that means. Ug for short. Their guide? This is where Gem is inspired. She sees some of his work--four films of kissing couples playing over and over--at the National Gallery, and she decides, with a bit of help from her artsy mother, Bev, that Andy Warhol should be their guide into the world of the Underground (which at first kept making me think of riding the subway a lot...). She does some research into Andy Warhol, his work, his life, and the people around him, and then comes up with a goal: to make an Underground film.

During the course of this project, Gem realizes a lot of things about her life and her relationships. She feels like her friendship with Lo and Mira is an isosceles triangle; the two of them are close together, and Gem is all alone at one end. She's also being pressured to make some decisions about her future, as all seventeen-year-olds are. Her mother and Sharon, school counselor and Gem's godmother, want her to go to University, but Gem's a lot more interested in film school. Speaking of her love of movies, she's starting to think she could love something else at Video City, where she works--her coworker, Dodgy. On top of all of this, Gem's father, Rolf, has always been out of the picture, just sending the occasional weird haiku from where he lives out in the wilderness--but now it looks as though he could be stepping back into Gem's life, at least for awhile.

This summer is a turning point in Gem's life. When it's all over, Gem will be different. Her life will be different. This much is pretty obvious. But how will things change?

I really, really loved this book. It was a lot of fun to read, and the idea of the summer project was very interesting, something that set this book apart from a ton of others. Almost all young adult literature is about things changing, as that's what's always going on for teenagers, but Simmone Howell's novel had something that makes it stand out in my mind! If it's got Andy Warhol and obscure movies in it, it's got to be different.

Gem is a wonderful character. I really felt, while reading this, as if I knew her. She's very interesting, and what goes on in her mind is fascinating. I couldn't put this book down! I woke up at one in the morning, for some reason anxious to finish this book. That almost never happens to me! As I'm writing this, it's a little bit difficult to explain what about this book is so amazing, but there's something. It really captures the teenage experience. Simmone Howell obviously remembers this time in her life very well! I'm going to have to revise my `Best of 2006' list to add this one! This is a must read!

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

Seventeen-year-old movie buff Germaine Greer (aka Gem) might not have been named after a Shakespeare-loving feminist if both her parents had been around. Gem has never seen her father, Rolf, because he has been absent her whole life. But luckily, she's close enough with her mother Bev that they could be considered friends. Having never really been what she would label "popular," Gem feels even luckier to have two girls like Lo and Mira as her closest friends.

The narrator describes the three-girl plot this way: each girl is seeking something...one gets lucky, one ends up where she started, and the other gets lost. As in the past, they decide they need a theme for the year --- some way for them to do whatever they want and not have to apologize. The art and film fanatic that she is, Gem comes up with an idea involving Andy Warhol and his Factory of Superstars and planning an art Happening so Underground it'll blow everyone's minds.

1 word --- 3 syllables --- Underground --- Ug.

At first Lo and Mira can't grasp the artistic genius of her plan, offering their own suggestions of Art Terror and the likes. But finally they come around and decide to shoot a film called The F-Word and throw The New Year's Happening of all time --- The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. They'll be surrounded by art and possibility.

Gem is forced to ask Roger "Dodgy" Brick, one of her co-workers at Videocity, to let her borrow a video camera. If the dictionary had a word for someone you're attracted to and repelled by at the same time, it would have Dodgy's picture next to it --- 100% barcode guy. But she falls for him anyway, mostly because she wants to experience the same carnal knowledge that Lo and Mira claim to have known.

Gem's great art gurus say that the way art mirrors life, it doesn't need a point. Bev says that life is not about the end...it's about the journey. Others say to devote yourself to something impossible, to give it your whole self and everything will turn out just fine. Gem thinks she sees all that and more, wanting her film to show the powerful links between all the formidable women of history. The only problem is that Gem doesn't know how to do this. So when things with Lo and Mira and The Happening fall to pieces, she feels caught somewhere between damaged and anomaly.

"What was our story? Were we just beginning, or were we experimental? Who was directing us?"

Mix these questions together with the I Ching and hexagrams, a dashboard Elvis, tongue piercings, Fu-Manchu mustaches, Monet's Waterlilies, Guatemalan worry dolls, The Curse of the Ugly, man teachers nicknamed "Boobs," party streaking and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND. Then grab some popcorn and enjoy this camera's-eye view of these teenagers up-close, all poise and control. At first. Keep the camera focused on them long enough, though, and their real selves emerge --- the uncertainty on their faces, their lives of quiet desperation, the unquenchable longing for something to Happen. That's where the good stuff is.

--- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

Review first published at Teenreads, 2007.

Like Sterne's other works, _A Sentimental Journey_ is extraordinarily playful. His works are the eighteenth century's postmodernist works of play. They have lots of textual puzzles and tend toward the absurd. For example, the Mr. Yorick of the _Journey_ is also a character in Sterne's major novel _Tristram Shandy_ and is also the name under which he publishes his own sermons (he was a clergyman). The text is very "fragmentary" and the novel even jokes about that itself, labelling parts of itself "fragment." In these ways, the _Journey_ is fun and modern.

But it is also indicative of an important eighteenth-century trend--sensibility or sentimentalism. All eras have their debates about the relationshp between the individual and society and this is one eighteenth-century answer. This opinion has nothing to do with "rights" but everything to do with "sympathy." Mr. Yorick, the "sentimental traveller," relates to other human beings through sympathetic physical responses, most notably the "pulses" and "beats" of his heart and hands for various women.

Therefore, this book is a good way to get into a very different historical mindset while at the same time seeing the roots of some of the literary forms of today.

This autobiographical acount by Sterne of his amorous progress through France and Northern Italy is surely one of the most delightful books ever written. Composed as he lay dying of tuberculosis, the book nonetheless encaptures the author's renowned zest for life as well as the libertine spirit of the age in which he lived. The journey down through France to Northern Italy is the perfect vehicle for an excursion into the nature of human sensibility, and from the moment that this cultured Anglo-Irish cleric sets foot in Calais, the reader is treated to a seies of exquisite encounters with the fairer sex. Rarely has an author transmitted so well his understanding of the psychological complexity of women, or the pleasure he takes in their company. Engaging, perceptive and witty, this is a book whiich cannot fail to leave an imprint on the imagination.

Even for modern readers, "A Sentimental Journey" (published 1768)is as startlingly innovative as Sterne's celebrated "Tristram Shandy". Sterne's ability to crystallize the minute details of experience - which may be down to a few seconds only - is reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse". Indeed, Woolf admired this book.

This is by no means an easy read. The 18th-century prose is difficult; the book is larded with Frenchisms and Biblical or classical allusions; the complex, slow narrative often requires re-reading. But the rewards are great! It's wise, deeply comical, and incredibly perceptive.

There are several helpful reviews below dealing with the aspect of "sentimentality", and so I will just single out two things which appealed to me:

1. STERNE AND BODY LANGUAGE. Sterne shows an almost 20th-century appreciation of body language. In fact, I believe he might have been the first to identify it as such. His chapter, "The Translation", highlights the importance of being able to interpret subtle physical hints, like a language: "There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this _shorthand_, and be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs, with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words." How visionary!

2. STERNE AND THE FRENCH. Ever since Shakespeare inserted a scene in "cod French" into _Henry V_, actually ever since the Norman Conquest and up to Monty Python and beyond, the English have revelled in mocking the French and their language. His Continental travelling gives Sterne the perfect excuse to do this. At one point he differentiates between "tant pis" (= "never mind" - where there is nothing to be gained) and "tant mieux" (= so much the better - where there IS an advantage). He also has a hilarious section on the grades of French swearing: first "Diable!", then "Peste!" and finally the words that he won't repeat. In all cases, Sterne carefully shows the social niceties of these expressions.

The protagonist, Yorick, has various adventures of lust and feeling with women and other typically travelish things like losing his passport that we can all relate to. He's tender, obscene, learned, funny, companionable, and above all, readable - if tough.

A Sentimental Journey is a fabulous book for so many reasons. Laurence Sterne was an immensely influential writer in the 18th century--his major works, Sentimental Journey and Tristram Shandy, were responses to the travel narrative and newly born novel, respectively. His writing is essential to scholars of the 18th century--he is referenced in Austen's Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey, Brown's The Power of Sympathy, Foster's The Coquette and Tyler's The Contrast. To understand and appreciate his novel is to have a better appreciation and love of the works that built their structures on his foundation. And yet it is original, as Yorick says himself, "both my travels and observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of my fore-runners."

Yet it is not solely for historical benefit that one should read Sentimental Journey. The adventures and amours of Sterne's semi-autobiographical Yorick are delightful. One of the most romantic passages I've read in a book occurs when Yorick inadvertantly takes the hand of a woman and describes in detail the thrill of merely holding it. Granted, hers is not the only hand he will hold, but he writes so wonderfully, candidly and engagingly that it is extremely difficult to hold his passions against the sentimental Yorick. His scene with the starling locked in a cage is pertinent and a touching commentary on slavery. What a guy! My only complaint is the editor of this edition does not feel it necessary to translate the French-of which there is plenty-making some passages difficult to understand at best. However,this is a sentimental journey that I will gladly take over and over.

Sterne befuddles and delights readers and critics alike in A Sentimental Journey. He takes the fashionable travel log of the time and satarizes it. Contemporary critics had a fit over its supposedly bawdy nature, yet some modern readers may over look its sublte innuendo. The form of the novel is quite unlike anything that had preceeded it, thus is important for any scholars. Most importanly, however, the book is funny and fun to read.