Holden Reviews

When I opened this book and read that the author was murdered in Cairo before finishing it, I began to get an idea of what I was getting into. Holden, a writer for the London Times, chronicles the rise of the Saudi Royal family beginning with the seizure of power by Ibn Saud in 1901. Many people neglect to position North African and the Middle East in World War II, but Holden recognizes how conflicts in these regions continue to be a problem today. Churchill carved up Kuwait, inciting future Iraqi aggression, and John Foster Dulles hobnobbed with the slick prince Feisal. Feisal was seen most recently in a picture in the New Yorker chatting it up with Muhammed Bin Laden, father of you know who, back in the `50's. Cars, planes, diamonds, Aristotle Onanasis, the Suez canal. To understand the role of the Saudis in world events is complicated, and Holden's book is often dry with details. His sense of humor saves him, describing incidents where Ibn Saud's successor is hospitalized and insists on making love to one of his wives in his hospital bed, assisted by several others. Better for academics and scholars than the average reader, this book is nonetheless accessible to those willing to look. Holden includes many vivid photographs of the sheiks posing with awkward executives and oil prospectors.

Wolff's book is a chronological documentary and listing of every shipping accident and disaster known to have happened on Lake Superior between 1816 and 1989. [Since then, the advent of both precise, digital navigation technology and better storm forecasting by the National Weather Service have probably made major disasters like the Edmund Fitzgerald a thing of the past, the possible exceptions still being sabotage or devastating mechanical malfunction.] Wolff's book is, as advertised, a "complete reference," with roughly 12 pages of thorough Fitzgerald event coverage dwarfed by the remaining 270 pages of material. Yes, the cold, dark waters of Superior have entombed many a fine vessel before 1975! The reading got rather dry at times, since the writer takes a rather formulaic approach to documenting each incident. This didn't bother me enough to quit reading; and in a way such consistency does aid in looking for specific details common to more than one shipping accident. But I recommend that you not buy this book unless you are: 1) Very interested in the maritime history of Lake Superior or shipwrecks in general, or 2) Seeking well-organized decriptive information on Superior shipping disasters other than the Fitzgerald (about which so much has been written in other forums). If either, then this book is very well worth the cost.

This is a book of various writings and pictures. Although reading many of the documents in this book can be boring, the summations of each are excellently done. Little boons like excerpts of the CIA pamphlets that educated Contras, or how the Andrews Sisters plagarized a Latin song, makes this an interesting hodge-podge.

Although I think it is difficult to write a good short love story for an anthology, because the lack of length in a novella makes it difficult to develop plot and characters adequately, this anthology is an exception. "Miss Delafield Disposes" is not a novella to be taken as a straight-forward romance, but rather to be enjoyed with much laughter! The heroine is being bamboozled by a slick artist, and the hero rushes in to save the day, even though at first he isn't really sure what is going on. There is a lot of "tongue-in-cheek" description and dialogue,and the author has a wicked sense of humor. Her descriptions are priceless. One example is when she describes the elderly Lady R--"dressed in rusty brown, she looked for all the world like a potted shrub in dire need of watering!" The second novella, by Carola Dunn, also was very satisfying. "The Frost Fair" tells not only of the fun people had when the Thames froze over, but also of the peril when the ice started to melt. It is a delightfully sweet tale of love in the upper working class, and it will be re-read many times by me. The third story, "Cupid's Arrow," was ok, but my least favorite. The author used the "love at first sight" ploy to explain the romance, and I don't care for it as much as I do when an author shows why the couple grows to care for each other(as in the "Frost Fair," where they learn about each other while having fun at a fair). I found the third story to be kind of boring, and probably wouldn't re-read it, while the first and second stories make the book worth buying. If the third story had been better, it would have been a 5 star book. As it is, it is still a good read.

When I was diagnosed with antiphospholipid antibodies earlier this year, I was unable to find much more information on the syndrome than a page or two on an outdated website, or the same blahbittyblah medical terminology. When I tripped over this book, I ordered it, figuring it would be little more than a glorified pamphlet.

I was pleasantly surprised! While it is by no means a textbook on APA and the ramifications of living with the syndrome, it had more information on the condition than I have found ANYWHERE, including what I learned from my doctors. I initially turned straight to the recurrent miscarriages section of the book (the book is divided into chapters on the different manifestations of APA: migraines, heart conditions, recurrent miscarriages, strokes, etc.) as that is how APA affects me, but I later found the other chapters to be just as informative, even though I hadn't thought they applied to my situation.

All in all, I was very pleased with this book. It exceeded my expectations!

Fascinating. Reads like fiction, although it is biographical. Well researched. Good picture of northwestern Mexico in the late 1800s, both politically and culturally.

Rich, beautiful photographs are a trademark of Arizona Highways travel guides and Stocker's book is no exception. It will not disappoint. The photographic tours give you a real feel for the land and will help you focus (or perhaps expand) your trip. And if you can't find the time or money to actually get down to Arizona for a while this is almost as good as being there.

This was a great guide to the Arizona scenic highways. there were alot of choices and depending on which part of Arizona you were traveling, this book gives you a less "touristic" option. I myself did the Apache trail. This book gave an accurate description on how "hazardous" this trip would be. I wish I would've paid more attention to the recommended time for travel. As usual, I assumed I could travel "faster" and missed some sights by minutes. Anyway, I highly recommend this book. Wish they would come up with others. Arizona is a beautiful state and has plenty to offer in rgs to scenic highways.

I found the book to be extremely hard to get through, wordy and boring. The entire book focuses on direct quotations from all of Shakespeare's works with little focus as to why the quotations were included in the text. The book gives the reader little of his personal life, personality, or political views, but focuses only on hundreds of people that he knew and met throughout the years giving detailed explanations of names, and their backgrounds. I found the book to be very boring, with little content on Shakespeare as a person; the book featured only comments on his hundreds of works. If you are EXTREMELY well versed with Shakespeare's works, this is a good pick for you. If you have some to little knowledge, pick something else. For the student who needs interesting information on him as a person, choose another book. I found it to be dry, repetative and only in depth on quotations from thousands of plays.

Somewhat to my surprise, this is a first-rate popular biography of a genius about whom we know practically nothing. Not that this has stopped any number of amateur sleuths from the Baconians to Eric Sams from trying to find clues in the poems and plays. Holden's is by far the liveliest and most readable. He doesn't make the mistake Anthony Burgess did of spraying his own personality over Shakespeare in the usual tom-cat fashion; nor is he bonkers, excessively academic or portentous. If you want to discover as much as can be known or surmised about the Bard, especially the early years, then Holden's book is fascinating. His thesis that the SHakespeares all closet Catholics, and that the young WS was sent as a teenager to recusant Lancashire to teach at Sir Thomas Hesketh's house as good an explanation as any of how the "rude groom" acquired polish and knowledge of how aristocratic families lived. His gloss on his marriage, the untimely death of his son Hamnett and his growing interest in his daughters all substantiated by apt quotations.

A wonderful piece of detective-work. Alongside Joanthan Bates's The Genius of Shakespeare it's a great new addition to the modern enthusiast's library.

Some of the other reviews incite me to add yet a few more words. Holden does NOT blur fact and fiction. He consistently lables speculation and inference, identifies sources, outlines opposing views, gives reasons for his choices, and qualifies his conclusions. His reading of the plays, while brief, reaches deeply into the heart of Shakespeare's works. This is a responsible and valuable book.

After consuming everything Hillerman has written, and learning something new about Native American culture from each book, and after Hillerman's squib on the Dust jacket, my expectations were set so far above what this trite book delivered that even two stars seems kind... As a 1/8 Arapaho [& 1/8 Blackfoot] i had hoped to learn something about their life. The characterizations were also paper thin, including both the male and female protagonists... and the denouement was telegraphed for miles... ergo, even as a mystery/suspense novel, this one flunked.

Ghost Walker is the story of Father O'Malley a Jesuit priest who works at St. Francis on the Arapaho reservation, and in his free time solves crime. Father O'Malley is a likeable character, with two problems: he has just discovered a body in a ditch by the side of the road, and two: he has financial trouble and is having difficulty making ends meet.

I wanted to like Ghost Walker, because it contained some of my favorite fictional elements: Native American Characters and Mystery, but the writing was inconsistent, and I really couldn't decide whether this book was supposed to be a 'cozy' mystery or hard-edged murder mystery, as a result it was neither, and the story suffered as a result.

Pros: Unique characters, interesting setting, some Native American Lore described.

Cons: O'Malley interfered WAY too much in Police Investigations. Police AND FBI, seemed to sit by the phone, waiting for O'Malley to call. (Yeah, right.) Substance and Alcohol Abuse themes felt a little bit heavy-handed for this reader, and I felt a bit sermonized to. The ending left me saying: Where's the mystery?

Overall, this was an okay read. I would have liked it better if it had been either a hard-edged mystery or a cozy. As both, it was rather weak, and it left me with a blah, ambivalent feeling.

This series by Ms. Coel is refreshing because the main characters are not perfect people. They are just like us with doubts and failures and struggles to deal with while solving crimes too. Excellent story telling and the Native American/southwestern flavor is a plus.