Europe Books

What a great book! I actually am a lover of Paris and photography, and of course who can resist a dog, let alone two? I really hope the authors make this into a series, maybe London, Florence, Venice? The book reads like a childrens book, but the target audience does seem to be aimed at adults. Whomever reads this book, it's enjoyable and one of my favorites!

This book is a charmer. The pictures are delightful and some are hilarious. It is a perfect gift for anyone who (1) is a dog lover and (2) has a sense of humor. They did a wonderful and creative job.

Being a good friend of the family, you can see how hard Malyszko and Huges have worked on this terrific book. The photographs are sure to go down as wonderful photos and the short poems are nice and 'crisp'. If you want a fantastic book to look at, read, learn a little French, or just have on a coffee table for guests to marvel over,this is it! It is a splendid and interesting book. I highly recommend it!

This book was a gift from a friend who knows our love for dogs and Paris. My wife had just returned from the city of lights to our four "children" when the book arrived. What a delightful remembrance of the city seen trhough the keen photographic eye of Michael Maylszko. The text is complementary to a fault. A truely seamless product.

This should be enjoyed by anyone who understands the mind of a dog or who has been to Paris. It will be especially pleasing to those who appreicate both

The dogs on their own are adorable, the words on their own are wonderful, the sights of Paris are beautiful - but put them all together in this lovely book and you get the dreamy package that is "Betty & Rita Go to Paris". Excellent work! I look forward to Betty & Rita's next adventure.

The Victorians were never the prudes our English teachers made them out to be. I will never look at an 1800s fashion plate the same way again.

Excellent service, as usual. I am thrilled with the service provided by Amazon and it's vendors and will buy books only from these sources.

This book is an absolutely brilliant, lucid, beautifully written, engrossing exploration of the relationships between women in Victorian England. Marcus' arguments are fresh and deeply surprising -- revolutionary, really -- yet somehow manage to feel utterly inevitable after the fact. I love the breadth of sources -- novels, diaries, fashion magazines, pedagogical manuals, pornography -- Marcus draws upon, and the stunningly diverse modes of relatedness she portrays as available to Victorian women. I rarely find myself reading academic books, yet for me "Between Women" was a real page turner. I recommend it very highly.

--according to the London Review of Books, the London Times, the BBC, and me! Marcus is smart, engaging, thorough-- and makes dazzling use of a vast array of primary sources. She asks (basically), "What if we re-read the Victorians as if women's relationships were important to one another?" Looking through this lens at diaries, letters, conduct manuals, law cases, anthropological writings, fashion plates, doll stories, and pornograpy, Marcus reveals a world that leaps off the page with life and immediacy. Go read it.

Sharon Marcus's "Between Women" is that rare academic book - utterly readable and absorbing and juicy. It not only re-casts Victorian literature in a new light, by examining the roles that women characters have in securing the marriage plot, but ushers the reader into a new way of understanding women's surprising power in Victorian society. The book argues that women and female friendship wielded considerable influence in Victorain society- in novel plots and in the work of marriage reform thinkers and leaders. Her work on "the plot of female amity" has been called ground-breaking and I can see why. Sharon Marcus's pages on "Great Expectations," for example, are just amazing, bringing the reader along, at every step, as this brilliant, clear mind details the charged interactions of Miss Havisham, Estella, and Pip. "Between Women" uses a fascinating array of source materials - not just novels, but pornographic magazines, fashion magazines, and treatises of social reform movements. She points out that sometimes female friendship meant friendship and sometimes it meant lesbian relationships. John Stuart Mill, for example, modeled his marriage reform ideas on the equitable dynamics at play in contemporary lesbian couples. The book's exploration of how mothers and daughters, and daughters with their dolls, were depicted in illustrations, often with sado-masochistic overtones, is pretty unforgettable and quite persuasive. It was fascinating to read how the language of fashion magazines and the language of pornographic journals were often the same. The writing in "Between Women" is wonderful and the research well-organized, diverse, and accessible. It is true that Sharon is a great friend of mine, but please know that it is also true that I would not write these sentences if I did not believe them. I read and adored this book and I hugely recommend it, to academics and non-academics (which I am), alike.

This three volume biography (this is vol II) on Bismarck is the definitive work on the man. Pflanze is unsurpassed by other lesser biographers on this subject. If you want to learn about Bismarck these three volumes are what to read.

This three volume biography (this is vol III)on Bismarck is the definitive work on the man. Pflanze is unsurpassed by other lesser biographers on this subject. If you want to learn about Bismarck these three volumes are what to read.

This is a work which, if you like solid history, you should read. It tells of the momentous things going on in Europe in the 19th century which are illuminated by this excellent work

I have just finished reading this book and the preceding two volumes. This is very solid work, and if you appreciate, as I do, feeling that an author has done good and careful research you will like these volumes. I have concluded that to really understand the Hitler period one must learn more about the 19th century in Germany. It seems to me that Bismarck, by his brilliant defense of autocratic rule in Germany, helped make Hitler possible. The footnotes in these volumes are where they are supposed to be--at the foot of each page--but it is regrettable that there is no bibliography as such.

Otto Pflanze's book describes how Bismarck manipulated domestic and international politics to unify Germany.
This book, ending in 1871 at the end of the first phase of Bismarck's career is the first of three volumes. The book begins by showing how idealists and romantics tried and failed to unite Germany, but Bismarck was a realist and based his methods on the strengths and weaknesses of individuals.

First Bismarck used cunning diplomacy to isolate the Austria, Prussia's rival for control of the German states. The Franco Austrian war demonstrated Austria's weakness, and increased worries among northern Germans about French strength. This improved Prussia's hand, and later Bismarck's hand.

Pflanze follows Bismarck's tactics step by step through his labyrinthine maneuvers as he
played France against Austria during the Schleswig Holstein situation Bismarck wanted to separate Austria from the German confederation and inspire the northern German states to unite into a Northern German confederation.

After Bismarck unified northern Germany he designed the constitution to allow him to play the Reichstag against the Prussian chamber of deputies. There was also a balance of power between the state and confederate governments. We also see domestic political and economic background to Bismarck's actions. Pflanze shows the domestic politics after Bismarck created the northern German confederation.

Bismarck used relations with France to make advances toward the southern German states. Pflanze carefully shows how Bismarck cleverly tried to use the Luxemburg crisis to woo the southern German states. But the southern German states were afraid of being overwhelmed by Prussia. The only thing that the southern German states admired about the northern German confederation was the Prussian military expertise.

Relations between France and Prussia worsened when the throne of Spain was offered to a Hohenzollern Kaiser William did not care if any of his relatives got the Spanish throne or not. But when Bismarck made it seem that the French had demanded that Kaiser William renounce any attention in the Spanish throne, he angrily refused. The nationalist French responded by declaring war.

Bismarck wanted a war with France to inspire the southern Germans to join the northern confederation against the threat of France. In this he succeeded. But nationalist anger of many, and political reasons of Bismarck caused Germany to annex Alsace Lorraine, which resulted in permanent hatred from France.
The only faults of this book are that Pflanze should have described the people more. He also should have included more maps and a bibliography.

The second part in the Black Cross/Red Star series focus on the air war between january - june 1942, perhaps the least know phase of the entire air war on the eastern front.

Knowledge of the air war on the eastern front has always been scarce in the west, and has mostly been influenced by the german point of view. This is a unfortunate result of the cold war, when access to soviet sources was almost nonexistant. But the cold war is over, and the soviet archives are slowly being opened for western scholars.

This book is full of interesting information about the equipment, aircraft, tactics and pilot training of the Luftwaffe and the V-VS (Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily, Soviet Military Airforce. The included glossary is excellent!), not to mention the excellent photos and aircraft profiles.

Among the interesting information in this book are accounts of the V-VS and Luftwaffe activity during the soviet winter offensive, the airlifts at Kholm and Demyansk (with some very interesting observations the german leadership ought to have studied closer), the soviet attempt to resupply the trapped Second Assault Army at Lyuban and the air campain against Sevastopol.

The authors tries to give an impartial account on the events from the views of both sides, and I think they accomplish this task well. Few books on the war on the eastern front are so unbiased, and I have read many.

For the student of the air war in the east this book is necessary, as air, as bread.

I originally ordered this book in August, but delays in shipping prevented it from arriving in my hands until recently. Let me say that the wait is all the more frustrating because this is a wonderful book!

Volume 2 of Black Cross / Red Star retains the written quality of Christer Bergstrom and Andrey Mikhailov, but adds aviation color profiles done by such notables as Claes Sundin and Tom Tullis. Those in the aviation community are familiar with their excellent work.

When I reviewed Volume 1, I made comments about the quality of the maps and photos. The authors and publisher listened to reader feedback and made the necessary corrections. The maps are outstanding! No blurring and all place names are readable. This greatly assists the reader when following the myriad of battles on the Eastern Front.

The strength of Black Cross / Red Star has always been the team of Bergstrom and Mikhailov. They intermix dates, times, persons and events with first-person accounts by all protagonists. Using this formula, the numbers and facts are given a human face. Joy, triumph, sorrow and pain all lie beneath all military statistics. For every victor there is a defeated foe. The reader learns about them in their own words from diaries and interviews.

Every day, surviving veterans pass on. Books like Black Cross / Red Star will soon be the only resource by which they will be remembered.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with even a sprinkling of interest in historical aviation.

Looking at BC/RS as a series, the overwhelming weight of reviewers rate it 5-stars. I heartily agree. The authors are gifted, analyzing the multiple factors relevant to combat and battle outcomes, then expressing their findings in an easily readable way.

The text is authoritative. To see where they got such a boggling mix of information, check the back of the book: their "Sources" fill more than 4 pages. Their approach is even-handed, it relies on facts to give an unvarnished view of true history.

Events are organized by Eastern Front combat zones with the focus on how air battles affected the outcome of major battles. As with Volume 1, the authors continue to illuminate new material and go on to dig into reasons why. A prime example is their thought-provoking chapter on the Demyansk pocket airlift.

Throughout the text, outstanding pilots of both sides get recognition for their exploits and often enough the worthy but lesser knowns also get their due.

In one respect, volume 2 improves on its predecessor -- illustrations. Photos are better. Also, fresh, hi-quality profile art of representative aircraft is abundant. Captions often add interesting detail.

A brief review can not capture all the strengths of this work which breaks new ground and does it so well. I've tried to avoid being redundant with other reviewers and recommend that interested buyers also check into other comments, including those for Volume 1.

LIKE SO MANY OF THE OTHER REVIEWS, THE QUALITY OF THE INFORMATION IN THIS BOOK IS SUPERB; HOWEVER, AFTER REVIEWING 17 COPIES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES, I HAVE CONCLUDED THAT THE PHYSICAL PRODUCTION IS ONE OF THE POOREST I HAVE EVER SEEN. FOLDED AND CREASED PAGES PROIR TO THE PRINTING AND SMEARED PRINTING INK ON NUMEROUS PAGES LOWER THE QUALITY AND VALUE OF THIS BOOK. FOR THOSE WISHING TO COLLECT THIS SERIES: BLACK CROSS/RED STAR, VOLUME II WAS A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT COMPARED TO VOLUME I.

IF A CLEAN COPY OF VOLUME II DOES EXIST , I WOULD BE MOST INTERESTED IN PURCHASING IT, SO AS TO ADD IT TO MY COLLECTION OF VOLUME I.

THIS SERIES IS AN AMAZING WORK OF LITURATURE, AND HOPEFULLY, PRODUCTION OF THE REMANINING VOLUMES WILL NOT ENCOUNTER SUCH POOR WORKMANSHIP.

HANK PUSICH, hank_pusich2000@yahoo.com

Looking at BC/RS as a series, the overwhelming weight of reviewers rate it 5-stars. I heartily agree. The authors are gifted, analyzing the multiple factors relevant to combat and battle outcomes, then expressing their findings in an easily readable way.

The text is authoritative. To see where they got such a boggling mix of information, check the back of the book: their "Sources" fill more than 4 pages. Their approach is even-handed, it relies on facts to give an unvarnished view of true history.

Events are organized by Eastern Front combat zones with the focus on how air battles affected the outcome of major battles. As with Volume 1, the authors continue to illuminate new material and go on to dig into reasons why. A prime example is their thought-provoking chapter on the Demyansk pocket airlift.

Throughout the text, outstanding pilots of both sides get recognition for their exploits and often enough the worthy but lesser knowns also get their due.

In one respect, volume 2 improves on its predecessor -- illustrations. Photos are better. Also, fresh, hi-quality profile art of representative aircraft is abundant. Captions often add interesting detail.

A brief review can not capture all the strengths of this work which breaks new ground and does it so well. I've tried to avoid being redundant with other reviewers and recommend that interested buyers also check into other comments, including those for Volume 1.

You don't have to be a feline fancier to enjoy the 28 gorgeous photos by Ron Nelson. The cats are, of course, irresistible - a jet black adventurer leaping from a white wall, a covey of the gentle creatures gathered around a blue fence or a black and white watchman perched high atop a pillar looking out to sea.

While the cats are irresistible so are the settings - Santorini and Antiparos. For me, Santorini is one of the most beautiful islands in the world. The result of an enormous volcanic explosion thousands of years ago Santorini is now blessed with astounding natural beauty. Three huge cliffs define the island as it slopes down to the gorgeous Mediterranean, and in the island's center is a magnificent lagoon. Needless to say the view from Santorini is spectacular.

I've not had the pleasure of visiting Antiparos however, if Ron Nelson's photos are any indication, it would be an estimable destination. It boasts a picture postcard harbor, wide sandy beaches, and clear sparkling water.

Cats of the Greek Islands is a delight for armchair travelers, animal lovers, and those who enjoy beautiful scenes.

- Gail Cooke

If you love cats, you got to love the photos in this book.

Gorgeous photographs! He catches cats doing fairly ordinary cat things against a breath-takingly beautiful backdrop of Greek scenery.

Ron Nelson's camera captures the soft details of some amazing cats living in the Greek Isles. Their fur seems to be especially healthy and their bright eyes seem to speak of happy days laying out in the sun, a life lived outdoors in the fresh air and a content spirit.

Each picture is framed on a white page to bring out the contrast of the white stone walls and sapphire waters glistening in the distance. Some kittens are found sleeping on windowsills outside windows with lace curtains while others find their home in a café or wandering along sun-drenched stone walls with foliage set against a background of mountains and cooling blue waters.

The photography in this book goes beyond capturing moments and has additional elements of artistic excellence.

My husband has always wanted a pure black cat and the one in this book really captured his interest in a variety of pictures including the one where the cat jumps off the wall and where it looks like it is meditating or observing the view. The tiny black-and-white cat will make you laugh as it seems to have found itself atop a large white stone pillar and is quite happy to sleep the day away far from the crowd.

All of the cats look especially well groomed, very pampered and happy to be living in Greece. Blue Cats is one of the most beautiful books on cats I've ever seen due to the additional artistic flair of the photography and the beyond gorgeous settings.

~The Rebecca Review

"Blue Cats" is a new offering from renowned photographer Ron Nelson. Nelson specializes in both human and animal imagery, mostly in Europe, and is one of the best photographers working today. Cats are both photogenic but notoriously difficult to photograph due to their individuality and unpredictability, but here Nelson makes it look easy.

Greece has some of the most stunning architecture, landscapes, and waterscapes in the world, and is also known for a large and gregarious cat population. In this book Nelson captures the natural beauty of Greece and the graceful four-footed inhabitants of the coastal areas. The composition of these photographs is delicate and artistic, yet playful and relaxing. I am especially fond of the photographs depicting cats in motion, especially the two photos (numbers 26 and 27) "Jump Across" and "Shadow of a Jump" taken in Oia, Santorini which are exquisitely composed: the study of lighting and shadow is excellent throughout the book, but peaks with "Shadow of a Jump" in my opinion.

This book is excellent for anyone who loves excellent photography, cats, or travel (especially with pristine water backdrops); it is beautifully conceived and printed, and would look great on any coffee table or in any library. I highly recommend this book, and hope to see more from Ron Nelson in the future.

Always the most thoroughly informative of the sources I use for preparation. I could not do without them. This is one of the best.

I was very pleased with this book but I ordered an used book about shopping in Italy at the same time which had pages missing. I returned that book (I believe it was through Warehouse - something) and am still waiting for my refund. I think in the future, I will buy only Amazon products and not order "used" things.

I just returned from a trip to Italy which included 4 days in Umbria and 8 days in Tuscany. I found the Blue Guides for both regions outstanding. Not surprisingly, both are quite worn (the best sign of a useful guidebook).

What makes this guidebook stand out is the incredible breadth of coverage of all tourist sites in Tuscany, making it quite thick, but not particularly heavy. (The only guide that I have seen that even comes close in terms of coverage is the Michelin Green Guide for Tuscany.) Each chapter represents a tour which covers either a town and its vicinity or a driving circuit. Within each tour, every conceivable tourist destination is identified, including small towns, churches, squares, public buildings, museums, archeological sites, etc. For significant museums and churches, the guide directs you through the works in a logical order. For the most part, individual works/objects are listed but not discussed, but notable works are identified with asterisks. Particularly remarkable works, such as Cathedrals and great fresco cycles, are discussed in more detail.

If you are interested in Italian art, architecture, and ancient history, then this book tells you where to find it in Tuscany, and provides brief descriptions. The guidebook does not teach you the history of art and architecture in Tuscany, nor should it. For this, you will need to do some additional reading.

Fine maps and a brief history are provided for each significant town. Parking advise is provided for most towns, and I strongly suggest you follow this advise. (I learned this the hard way.) Also pay close attention to the opening hours, which are quite accurate. The guide's hotel and restaurant recommendations seem quite good; they overlap significantly with the Michelin Red Guide and Frommers. Unfortunately, no descriptions or prices are provided, so most people will want another guidebook for this use. Some of the site closure information was out of date, but I expect this to be updated with the 2000 edition.

The Blue Guide series focuses on art. If you are looking for hotels, shopping, restaurants, or for entertaining reading, rely on something else. If you're looking for a serious guide to history, art, and architecture, both the well-known and the quietly tucked away, a list of hours and days open for musuems, holidays (often to be avoided!), as well as addresses of libraries and research insitutions, the Blue Guides are for you. They cover almost every artwork in the various regions, and do so accurately. The books guide the reader systematically through churches and museums and include accurate floor plans. Towns are grouped into touring areas, as are neighborhoods in the large cities. Town maps, even for little places, are plentiful and precise, even for the winding streets of Siena. City maps, such as Florence, are equally precise and inclusive, but they are split among several pages, which can make them harder to follow --- a minor flaw. I use Blue Guides as a textbook for my college students, and I never go to Italy without at least one!

If you really want to see Tuscany, this it: this book will take you to places you wouldn't find any other way, from charming villages that are way off the beaten track, down colorful streets and staircases to hidden piazzi that you would have walked right past, into courtyards, and out to ancient country churches with masterpieces on the altar. The Blue Guide to Tuscany is 510 pages long, plus two indexes: the author, Alta Macadam, has apparently combed every city, town and hamlet in Tuscany, traveled every road and lane, wangled her way into every locked church and described its treasures, and surveyed every provincial museum. She includes practically everything of any interest at all in the entire province of Tuscany, including the provenance of every work of art and the programs of the frescoes and carvings in every church and abbey, and notes on the contents of every museum. She gives extensive information on the architecture of Tuscany's buildings, including many floor plans, and good notes on local history. It is organized geographically, with town and city tours, and lots of maps. I heard many guides giving their talks on our visit, and very few of them had more to say about anything that Ms. Macadam or were more informative; many of the places she described exhaustively had neither guides nor tourists besides ourselves, which in Tuscany is unusual.

Her directions can be a bit cryptic at times, but if you read carefully, you'll get used to them. As in all of the Blue Guides, she is prone to understatement: when, for example, speaking of the old town in Certaldo, she says that "the upper town has considerable charm", what she means is that it is ravishingly beautiful, will charm your senses and lift your spirit, and your friends and family will envy your photos and your vacation forever.

Caveats: some people will find this guide to be overwhelming. Because it is so dense and exhaustive, use it to plan your trip before you leave or you'll be buried in minutiae and miss things you'll have wanted very much to see.

This book is very informative and well researched. It, however, does not contain a lot of colour photos. Nevertheless, the book is excellent in content and very useful for research. It, along with the Vol 1, are necessities to any nautical library.

An excellant source of information to anyone interested in the age of fighting sail. Not just firarms of the period are covered but all gunpowder weapons used for combat by ships at sea of the period. Provides a great wealth of information and insight into the imagination and genius of the weapons desighners of the period.

Great book and very great reading.

Students of navy history in the age of fighting sail are in for a feast! This is the BEST book I've read to date on the firearms of the sea service. From muskets, pistols, volley guns, carronades, grenades and other incinderaries, Gilkerson does an outstanding job with the subject. By the time I was finished with this one, I was ready to strap on a cutlass and a brace of pistols!

What can I say, but WOW!!! This is an EXCELLENT book on the edged tools and weapons used during the age of fighting sail.
Well documented, with exceptional line drawings and paintings, this book is a MUST for museum curators, collectors, reenactors, artists and navy historians. Even if you are not an "anchor clanker" at heart, you can almost smell the salt air and feel the spray...

There is a vast literature on naval warfare in the age of sail. William Gilkerson's two volume set, Boarders Away, deals with the fascinating topic of boarding actions and their weapons and tactics. Although covering the entire age of fighting sail, his emphasis is on the period 1775-1815 and on the British, French, and American navies.

Volume I, With Steel, covers edged weapons and polearms. Chapter I gives a general description of boarding actions. Included is a detailed account of the 1813 action between HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake. Other chapters discuss boarding axes, boarding pikes, cutlasses, officers swords and dirks, and miscellaneous weapons (knives, belaying pins, flensing spades, etc.)

The text discussed these subjects in lavish detail. Included are are extracts from logs and other primary sources. The folio-sized volume is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of drawings and photographs. The cover photo above is an example of one of the colored plates.

To write a book about a single-day operation ( 260 pages !!! )requires a lot of research , time, patience, etc. The writers did an excellent job in making this book with many personal accounts of pilots from both sides and a lot of very good photo's, not only from planes or places but from pilots as well. Combined with other books in my collection, it almost makes the picture and story complete. Hardly watching television anymore !

This is an incredible book. It's just that simple. The level of detail and precision of the research involved is better than any other "battle" book I've ever read, air or ground.
But if there is any criticism of this book to be had it is just that, there is so much information here that it can be a bit overwhelming. Not to say that it isn't well written, it most assuredly is, but it is not a book for someone with a casual interest in the air war or someone looking for some light reading on WWII.
Bodenplatte was the ill conceived last gasp of a desperate Lufwaffe. And while it succeeded in causing considerable damage at some fields even if it had done so everywhere it would have still proven a pyrrhic victory as it killed very few allied personnel, mostly it destroyed equipment... equipment that, at that point in the war, the Allies could rapidly and easily replace. But it was a fascinating battle, and if you want to understand what happened and why it happened, this is the book to read.

Bodenplatte is an excellent book and very interesting, the more so since I was at Eindhoven on New Year's day 1945 and was wounded with many others. I can certainly confirm the verocity of the attack.

Bodenplatte proves to be Luftwaffe's last major aerial offensive of World War II and this book shows why this raid proves to be so ill-fated, ill conceived and badly planned. Superbly researched by the two authors with hundreds of first hand accounts that gives much clarity to this often overlooked one day effort that totally compromised the Luftwaffe military effort along the western front for the rest of the war.

The book is divided so each fighter wing (Jagdgeschwader) who took part of the operation had their own chapter. Each chapter shows how they prepared and how they fared during the New Year Day raid. As in most cases, these Jagdgeschwaders did not fared very well at all. It pretty interesting to read that almost 50% of all Luftwaffe losses were due to anti-aircraft, mostly Allied although German lost some more to their own anti-aircraft units. The lost of German pilots proves to be the hinchpin of doom for the Luftwaffe while Allies easily replaced all pilots and planes lost in that raid.

The book read pretty well, there are over 400 black and white photos that goes with the account given and many of photos proves to be interesting ones. The book is written with certain German centric point of view although first hand accounts were given from both sides. There is also a very detail appendixs of who shot down who, what unit lost what planes and pilots and host of other material that reflect on the details of the raid. The research, as I write again, proves to be superb.

If there was a weakness, I would say that the maps could have been better design. Also, this book wasn't meant to be read by beginner reader. The authors fully expect their readers to understand the full aspect of World War II history during this period and readily be able to tell the difference between a FW190D and ME109G. There isn't much in this book for elementary education on World War II. The authors take you straight into the military narrative of the raid.

Overall, a definitive account of Bodenplatte Raid and as it turned out, it wasn't much hope for the Luftwaffe after this. The book come highly recommended for experience readers. (Funny, Hikoki Publications - Hikoki is Japanese word for "plane".)

Hikoki Publications has a well-deserved reputation for producing high-quality military aviation history books.

BODENPLATTE is a perfect example of Hikoki's commitment to quality. There have been other books on the Luftwaffe's ill-fated attacks on Allied airfields on 1 January 1945, most notably Norman Frank's book, but the Manrho and Putz book must stand as the definitive book on the subject.

The depth of research in this book is truly impressive. Comments from dozens of German and Allied personnel help trace the fate of each Jagdgeschwader over France, Belgium and Holland. The book's final chapter detailing actual losses on both sides is especially helpful in showing what a pyrrhic victory Bodenplatte was for the Luftwaffe.

The book is well-illustrated with over 400 photos, including shots of Luftwaffe aircraft caught in the act of strafing Allied airfields. (I wish Hikoki had included color profiles of some of the FW 190s and Me 109s involved but that's a minor quibble).

In short, Buy this book! Military aviation history doesn't get much better than this!

I bought this book for the projects I do in my classroom close to Halloween. It is already peaking interest on my desk along with other books dealing with Halloween.

This is an older view of Halloween. It gives an excellent overview of Halloween and gives a splendid idea about the spooky goings on during the late 1800s and early half of the 1900s. I recommend it.

I was so thrilled to discover that this book is back in print! My grandmother owned a copy, and I read it over and over again at Halloween when I was a little girl. It is the ultimate history of the Halloween holiday, from ancient times to the early Twentieth Century. The author, Ruth Edna Kelley, was herself just 25 or so when the book was originally published in 1919. I'm not a very good review writer, but I wanted to let anyone who is considering buying this book know that this is a very nice edition, and the cover is just adorable. Everything I remember from childhood is there, except for a few blurry black and white pictures that were never very exciting to begin with. What makes this book great are the words, the accounts of how Halloween was celebrated in various countries, especially the Victorian Era games people played at parties, including about a dozen "tests" for discovering the name or seeing the face of your true love in a vision. I am crazy for anything having to do with this era, and re-reading The Book of Hallowe'en after all these years was like stepping backward in time and really being there. The accounts are so vivid, it really makes you want to just live now the way they did then. With this book, you could accomplish it. Everything you would need to have an authentic Victorian Halloween party today is right here. Best of all, it's just $13.95. I've seen used copies selling on Amazon for over a thousand dollars! I'm just tickled, really! This is a great book!

Hallowe'en aficionado number one right here. Skeleton Jack was based on me. I thought there was nothing I didn't already know about my holiday, but apparently I missed a few things from the turn of the century.

Be prepared though. This book is wonderful as a chunk of history re-printed in the glow of a new millennium, but it's also dated in some ways of thought. That the people of Better Days Books left the text intact instead of editing it is very admirable. You'll be reading history as it was written, not as it has been changed to be.

Sadly, despite being very educational and exciting, Ms. Kelley is a rather poor author. The text is brief on subjects and jumps around considerably. Still an enjoyable read, but I found myself wanting more on subjects that only received a mention.

Overall, for the very reasonable price of this paperback, you can't go wrong. If you're even the slightest bit interested in how Hallowe'en was celebrated in and around the author's time, as well as speculation on customs from long before her time, definitely purchase this book.

Tara Conrad praised this book very well in her review, so I won't rehash the reasons The Book of Hallowe'en is a great work of folklore and fun. I do want to point out, though, that her review refers to the Better Days Books edition, which is considerably cheaper and has an awesome cover. It's the same book on the inside, so save yourself a few bucks! This review will likely populate to all editions of this book by all publishers, so please note that the Better Days Books edition has "Lulu.com" listed as publisher (I don't know why) on the product page. But you'll know you're there when you see the cover - an adorable Halloween owl sitting atop an old-fashioned, round-eyed jackolantern. And a list price of $13.95!

Attention Wiccans and pagans! The Book of Hallowe'en is probably the best history of the Samhain holiday ever compiled. Ruth Edna Kelley really did her homework, and the literal centuries of folklore gathered in this book, from all over Europe and America, is a priceless source of information every person with a magickal inclination should have in their library.

Roy Bainton is a British journalist. He wrote a short narrative history of the Russian revolution in 1917, an excellent introduction in a very fluid style. He focused on the experience of the people, great and small, who influenced or just lived through those momentous events (mostly in Saint-Petersburg, the capital city). 1917 was a year of great suffering for the Russian people. The " First revolution", in February, that put an end to the Old autocratic Empire, unleashed huge hopes for freedom. The October " coup" of the Bolscheviks, however, crushed these hopes for at least 70 years, and inaugurated unheard of barbarism in the name of ideology "for the good of the people".
Roy Bainton used a variety of "general" sources, but most importantly, because he meant to recreate the ambiance of the times, contemporary eyewitness accounts; he also traveled several times to Saint-Petersburg in 2000 to speak to people who either had been through the events (although at the time they were still very small children)or who told the author about their parents' experiences. That would not have been possible before the 1990's. This is the first book I read about the Russian revolution but I found its approach particularly refreshing.

I found the book informative and paced fairly quickly ... but I knew very little, so each and every tidbit was new to me. Not academic-y, which is a common trap to fall into for books like these. There were a few slow parts, but suprisingly readable overall.

Roy Bainton is an outstanding writer and historian, the best. Excellent.

Superbly researched and written in such a manner that the facts are easily digested and you might find it hard to put down. This is not dry history; Bainton provides the atmosphere to make it an exciting read.

This is the kind of book that might be produced in any free country about almost any incident of interest. It's the memories and personal recollections of a large group of people.

In the Soviet Union such recollections had to match the party line from the time of the revolution (1917) until recently. That makes this a breakthrough book. The number of people old enough to remember what they were doing that year is rapidly shrinking.

Mr. Bainton visited Russia several times seeking people to interview. He was successful in finding a great many people to talk to him. Most were original observers, some were telling stories that had been told to them by parents or earlier relatives.

It's a very enlightening book.