Canada Day Books

If you are going to Italy and you don't know any Italian - get this CD and listen to it before you go.

I listened to it in my car on the way to work for several days before my recent trip to Italy and it was great. 50 very useful words and excellent pronunciation. It was great learning by listening and Elisabeth Smith has a great demeanor on the audio tracks that keeps you interested in learning the language.

The words she taught I used every day I was in Italy. They helped me give a very good impression to the Italians I dealt with in train stations, bakeries, restaurants and hotels and even on the street. Just by saying a few words in Italian generated immediate empathy for me as a traveler by the Italians I met and they would then go out of their way to help me. This CD made my trip to Italy much more enjoyable.

Elisabeth did a good job pacing the teaching so it built your confidence in speaking the new Italian words. She stuck to what was practical and usable.

I highly recommend this CD to anyone traveling to Italy.

I just bought her One-Day German CD for my daughter who will be studying in Berlin in a few weeks so she can pick up a little traveler's German. I was delighted when I found Elisabeth had produced a German CD. My daughter specifically asked if she had because I had let my daughter use the One-Day Italian CD by Elisabeth and she loved it, too. And my daughter has taken 6 years of French and is much better at languages than I am.

So go out and get this CD, you'll be glad you did.

I recently purchased Teach Yourself One-Day Italian before a trip to Venice, Italy. I purchased the CD as a supplement to a 16 lessons set of Pimsleur Italian I had purchased and Michel Thomas' Deluxe Italian 8 CD set. I was very impressed with Elisabeth Smith's format and presentation. Far superior to any one CD language lesson I have come across and listened to. The CD provides exactly what it offers - 50 important words and a few sentences to help you on vacation. The format was very entertaining and instructive. It was easy and fun to listen to the CD over and over again as reinforcement of the learning process. I highly recommend this CD to anyone who wants to learn a few basic words and sentences before a trip. I was so impressed that I purchased all of Elisabeth Smith's other Teach Yourself One-Day CDs (French, German, Spanish and Greek). They all follow the same format. I always appreciate knowing a few basic words of the language of the country I am visiting. Typically, I use Pimsleur Level 1 CDs to get a basic grasp of a language and learn how to correctly pronounce the words. However, Pimsleur is costly. For those interested in just learning a few words at a great cost, you can't go wrong purchasing any of the Teach Yourself One-Day language CDs. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because she made me want to learn another 50 words right away. I would immediately purchase any CD Ms. Smith would put out that offered to teach me 100 to 300 basic words and sentences using a similar learning format. Thank you for a great product. I only hope others will purchase these little gems to keep them in circulation.

Anyone who claims this novel to be "too deep" or "hard to follow" is obviously delusional, and does not recognize a work of art when he or she sees it. Never in my life have I had the pleasure of reading such a novel that created a world so meaningful, and so ornamented with layer upon layer of tremendous passion.

To top that off, the author's interwoven use of Whitman's poetry is exceptional. Once again, Cunningham proves that he is a literary genius worthy of immense praise. I cannot wait for his next work to be released.

I have to preface this review by saying this is the first Michael Cunningham novel I have read -- I'm not familiar with "The Hours" nor the movie of the same name (although I do have the Philip Glass soundtrack). With that in mind, read on:

I have just finished "Specimen Days - A Novel" by Michael Cunningham. The book is set in three parts, whereas the first takes place approximately a hundred years in the past, the second in the near present or near future, and the third in the distant future. The three parts are linked by characters which despite sharing names do not share the same attributes; a certain inanimate object; and the poetry of Walt Whitman.

For those who might not know, "Specimen Days" is also the title of a prose-poetry book by Whitman described as "autobiographic"... but it is much more than that; everyone needs to read both "Specimen Days" back to back to appreciate what Cunningham has wrought.

Of the three sections, the first is the most compelling. I can't say much without revealing plot, so I'll generalize by saying the imagery and symbolism are most vivid in the first section, perhaps because the author is trying to recreate a world already gone before we were born. The second section, depicting the world we live in now, seems wan in comparison; the effect is similar to placing a black and white photograph beside an impressionist's painting -- the riot of color in the painting makes the black and white photograph seem two-dimensional and less substantial. The third section takes place about four centuries in the future and is still less vivid than the first section, but does have more imagery than the second section. A key scene in the park, a chase scene, and a swimming scene stand out in my recollection of the final section.

My intuition tells me that the author sees more than the obvious connection between the three sections of this novel. There are themes: the first that comes to mind is Whitman and his life-celebrating "Leaves of Grass." The second theme is a juxtaposition of the beauty of inanimate things with the often-banal daily existence of living things (or maybe the point I missed is the fragility of all things, living and inanimate, and how this fragility binds us together as we all seek to survive). A third theme is the question of what constitutes a life. A fourth could be related to the color green (even the dust jacket and spine are green), although I'm struggling to remember any reference to it in the second section... creative choice or oversight? There's also death, and renewal -- children figure prominently in all three sections. The setting of Gotham/New York City is an obvious thread. Loss and longing are common threads, and the desire to survive. Movement from the familiar into the unknown also binds the sections together.

At the end of the novel I'm left with each of these themes (and perhaps more, subconsciously) as my mind seeks to join the three events together. Its a clever device, similar to placing three seemingly unrelated photographs side by side and leaving them for everyone who follows to attempt to decipher not only the underlying story that connects them but also the artist's intent for choosing those particular photos and placing them in that particular sequence. The unfinished nature of each section leaves them hovering in the mind's eye like landscapes glimpsed through the window of a speeding train, joined only by the rails and the relativity of the traveler. This would be an excellent book club novel, as it contains so much that is open to interpretation and each reader is going to synthesize the connections differently.

I will say that as a stand-alone opening of a science fiction novel the third section was fantastic, and I would have enjoyed a book length treatment of the issues brought up in the last section to see where the author would take them. Michael Cunningham, if you're reading this, change the ending of the third section and make it the opening third of a novel and answer the questions you honed in "Specimen Days." Actually, each of these sections could have been expanded into deeply insightful and probing novels, which might explain why I've come away from this book feeling as if I've dined at the table but I'm not sated.

Perhaps, if we're very lucky, the author will publish a sequel with three more sections equally intertwined whereby we pick up the stories of these carefully crafted characters and delve even more deeply into the themes outlined above while learning where their destinies take them. Having tasted the power of what was offered, I would leap at the chance to enjoy more.

Thank you Michael Cunningham!

Now that I've discovered that this isn't the first book of three juxtaposed sections Mr. Cunningham has written, it becomes obvious that he's experimenting with the "collage as literary device" that he began in the other book. The difficulty of composing and coordinating three different interlocking works of fiction based upon the issues and writings of another writer (the fourth dimension) and spaced out across time (the fifth dimension) cannot be exaggerated. Writing in three dimensions overwhelms most aspiring writers. Writing fiction in five dimensions is a new art form, and I love it. If you want ordinary writers and novels, look elsewhere. If you want extraordinary writing and reading, choose Michael Cunningham.

This is a very interesting book if you can get past some of the science-fiction that he has in his version of the future. If you're expecting something like The Hours... then read The Hours again. This is an entirely different book. His juxtaposition of similar people and elements in the past, present, and future make it feel almost like you're reading a puzzle put together in three different ways, all, in my opinion, asking the same question: what does it take to be alive, and what does it mean? I loved it.

Wow.

What a weird and disappointing book!

I LOVED The Hours- but this is on par with The Mermaid's Chair, in terms of its failure to measure up. TMChair is no "Bees" and THIS is no "THours"!

If you enjoy historical fiction AND SciFi, you will like the way Cunningham bridges the two genre; otherwise: forget it.

All the time I was reading this, I was under the impression that SPECIMEN DAYS was an earlier work than Cunningham's Pultizer Prize novel, THE HOURS (1998). It has the same basic structure: three separate stories set in different time periods, linked by parallel characters and themes, and tied together by reference to a celebrated author. In SPECIMEN DAYS, that author is Walt Whitman, who appears as a minor character in one of the stories and is extensively quoted in the others. But apart from such links, the three tales here are separate novellas. You could see -- or I thought you could see -- Cunningham reaching towards the effortless synthesis of the interwoven tales that spread like ripples from the life of Virginia Woolf in THE HOURS. Although SPECIMEN DAYS does not fully work, I could honor it as the intriguing precursor to a masterpiece. But now I discover that this is the later book, written in 2005; so I have to ask why the author repeats himself to such reduced effect.

Considered on its own, however, SPECIMEN DAYS has much to recommend it. Much as David Mitchell had done in his CLOUD ATLAS, Cunningham writes each of his stories in a different genre, handling the shifts in style with effortless virtuosity. The first novella, "In the Machine," set in a ninteenth-century industrialized New York, is a kind of historical romance with supernatural overtones. When his elder brother Simon is killed in an industrial accident, his younger brother Lucas takes his job at the iron foundry. Lucas is a misshapen child with a head like a goblin, but also some kind of a savant who appears to have memorized large swaths of Whitman. He has a crush on Simon's former fiancée Catherine, who works as a seamstress in a sweat-shop, and tries to protect her when he becomes convinced that she is in danger. It is a touching story, full of period detail, and strengthened rather than weakened by the fact that the love interest is so unconventional and unequal.

The second novella, "The Children's Crusade," moves to post-9/11 New York, and borrows the genre of the police procedural. The female character, here called Cat, is in African American psychologist working for the NYPD fielding phone calls related to terrorist threats. In this story, her lover Simon is very much alive, though ultimately peripheral to the plot which brings her into contact once more with another precocious but deformed child, in a situation where Walt Whitman is quoted with much more sinister intent.

So far, Cunningham's juggling of different periods in the New York setting has reminded me of Pete Hamill's similar time travels in FOREVER. But in the final novella, "Like Beauty," Cunningham moves into quite different territory, that of post-apocalyptic science fiction. Space travel has been perfected and then abandoned; America now has a population of green-hued Nadians who do the work of cleaners and nannies. Catareen, the female figure here, is one of these, working in a New York that has been turned into a theme park where tourists may enjoy such thrills as being mugged by authentic-looking street people; Simon, the principal character, is one of the actors performing such services. It is a tribute to Cunningham's skill that he could keep me engrossed in a genre that normally leaves me cold, and make cogent comments about human nature, politics, and class relations along the way. But the ending was an anticlimax. All three stories leave the narrative hanging; in the first two this seemed appropriate, but here I expected something that would tie the three novellas together and make clear the essential unity of the whole. In this, I was disappointed.

I have no idea why this book is no longer in print. Jim Bishop wrote an earlier book about the day Lincoln was killed ("The Day Lincoln Was Shot") that is still in print (and it's great), but this one has apparently fallen out of favor. Strange.

So why a minute-by-minute examination of a single day, even a day as momentous as this one? That's not necessarily an easy question to answer; it is a kind of subset history genre, the close examination of Kennedy's death, or Lincoln's, or Christ's, or 9/11, etc. On first blush it might seem of value only to the researcher writing from a larger historical perspective, but in fact a work of history with this kind of focus can be far more interesting than any other approach to the subject. In the case of JFK, the incredible tension that builds naturally from a chronicle of the day he was killed makes for a more thrilling story than a novel on the same subject could ever hope to achieve.

The book follows not only Kennedy but all the players, Jackie, Oswald, his mother & his wife, LBJ, RFK, J.D. Tippett, and so on. At times these separate strands converge, but mostly they're followed separately and Bishop does a masterful job of keeping all the threads tight. It's hard to imagine the amount of research and organization that went into telling this story so cleanly, because it is certainly one of the most confusing, contradictory days in world history, but Bishop makes it look easy. He is a brilliant storyteller, and anyone will tell you that is what a great reporter has to be. It's not just the facts, ma'am, it's the narrative drive, and this one moves like a supercharged Hummer.

So why has it fallen out of print? And why has another book on the same topic, William Manchester's "Death of a President," also fallen out of print? I'm not much on conspiracy theories; there's nothing in either book that the "military-industrial complex" would find terribly distressing. Bishop does mention several eyewitnesses who saw or heard shots coming from the famous grassy knoll---as, incidentally, do the live news accounts of November 22---but by far most of the evidence Bishop (and Manchester) collects points squarely at Lee Harvey Oswald. I think this excellent book is out of print now because people just don't care who killed Kennedy anymore, and they certainly aren't interested in a blow-by-blow account of the assassination.

To say this is "too bad" would be an understatement of biblical proportions. Every day, every hour, we are losing our sense of wonder and curiosity about our country, and we are most particularly forgetting the lessons the Sixties taught us: don't trust the official story. They may be right (in this case, I think they actually are: I believe Oswald did act alone and the "coverup" all these years has been the CIA, FBI, Dallas police dept., etc. covering up how incompetent and ineffectual they were protecting Kennedy that day), but you should ALWAYS look into the story for yourself. Books like "The Day Kennedy Was Shot" (and Oliver Stone's masterwork film "JFK") help us do that, by marshalling all the available information into a powerful narrative thrust. If we forget, or more importantly if we simply cease to care, then the ones who want us to sleep our lives away have won before we're even out of the starting gate.

Read this book, not just because it is about one of the most important days in American history, and not just because it is a remarkably well-written thriller, but also because it is important, SO important, that we never forget this man and how he died and the lessons his death taught us.

As the leading civilian authority on the Secret Service, I recommend this book for its clasic status. That said, there are several errors throughout and, like Manchester before him, Bishop has an obvious lone-nut bias. I know for a fact that Bishop spoke to former Secret Service agents Bill Greer and Jim Rowley...beyond that, it is hard to tell who (if anyone) else.
Vince Palamara-JFK/ Secret Service expert (History Channel, author of two books, in over 30 other author's books, etc.)
Pittsburgh, PA

"The Day Kennedy Was Shot" is one of the most well written books I've read so far this year!! At first glance, this book is like looking at a script of the TV series "24", but sadly Jack Bauer wasn't there to help and the tragic events of November 22nd, 1963 were not fictional, but a tragic reality. How an authour, yet alone anyone, can piece together the events of a single day in such mintue detail is beyond me. The scenes he masterully recreates make the reader feel like they are there. This book was gripping and hard to put down! The only thing that this book lacks (while taking nothing away from the theme and I suspect, the intent of the book) is an exploration of possible conspiracy theories. (If you're looking for another "conspiracy" book, this one is NOT for you) But if you're looking for a complete account of that day's events. (The book's chapters are divided into hourly sagments running from 7AM-3AM CST) this is THE ONE! I would recomend this book as an ideal source to use if you're writing a report about that fateful day. I would defy anyone to match its exactness of detail!

From the opening sequence depicting the alleged events in the Kennedy's suite at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth that morning, complete with the character's imaginary thoughts, one immediately gains the uncomfortable impression that Mr. Bishop is merely making this stuff up. His detailed analysis of those fateful 60 seconds in Dealey Plaza is worse than conjecture, it is utterly IMPOSSIBLE. Not only does he treat us to a detailed description of Oswald's alleged actions and even thoughts as he supposedly sits in that window in the School Book Depository (from which we now know at least some of the shots could not have been fired) with a complete absence of witnesses or testimony, he then goes on to describe how the first bullet missed, hit the street BEHIND the car yet managed to spray the occupants in their FACES with "cement dust", and then somehow ricocheted over, under, or around the car to then hit the curb two streets away and account for Mr. Tague's facial injuries. Not only is this feat of physics utterly impossible, it is not recounted in this manner by one single witness to these events. Even if the reader were predisposed to believe that Mr. Oswald acted alone, which not only is not plausible but is not possible in the face of known evidence, it is ridiculous to imagine that Mr. Bishop would know it to be due to Oswald's wife and mother not treating him sufficiently like a "man". The concept of an impartial analysis of the day's events is an interesting one, but having amassed quite an assassination library myself I would strongly recommend that this early apologist effort be passed over. You can get a better accounting of the details with a great deal less spin in Jim Marrs' "Crossfire".

John F Kennedy, the 35th. American President, served from January 20, 1961 until he was assassinated in Dallas-Texas on November 22, 1963.

During his short term in office important events took place and some of their effects, after forty-four years, are still living with us up to this day.
For instance, Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Cuban Missile Crises and his confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev - American U2 Spy Plane.
The establishment of the Berlin Wall and USA subsequent estrangement with USSR.
The Space Race with the Soviets and his solemn promise to America to outpace USSR by pushing research and development of the Space Program.
The beginning of Vietnam crises.
The energetic inauguration of American Civil rights.

The book referred to all the above, but did not touch base with something equally important.
Israel.
The Negev Nuclear Research Centre located about ten kilometres to the south Dimona in Israel.

It has never been a secret that in 1958, the French helped Israel construct the centre.
{{{The year 1958 was filled with open unrest in the Middle East. a) Union between Egypt and Syria. b) Civil disturbances in the Lebanon c) Coup in Iraq - suspected as communists. d) The Marines landed in Lebanon, and e) The height of the Algerian Revolution and its adverse impact on the Franco-Egyptian relations}}}.

Nevertheless, officially the centre was built as nuclear reactor to help produce additional power for `desalination plant' to water the Negev desert.
The world concluded that the purpose of Dimona was not as announced. Israel constructed it to build nuclear weapons. The Arab world, estranged with Israel since day one, suspected the Israelis were applying a policy shrouded in ambiguity and equivocation.

Dimona began active work in the beginning of 1962 and was able to produce plutonium. Arab university professors gathered in Cairo and their forum reached the conclusion that enriched uranium was also produced.

USA intelligence was able to assess the purpose of Dimona since the beginning of 1960 and insisted that Israel should agree to comply with international standards of `inspection' (Israel never signed the Nuclear non-Proliferation Pact that began late in 1960).
Indeed, Ben Gurion agreed to international inspection provided 1) Inspectors are USA citizens or under the sole supervision of the USA, and 2) that Israel would receive advance notice of the schedule of inspection.
Some suspected that since Israel was able to receive advance warning of the date of inspection, it was a lot easy to makeover, hide, evade, and cover, ahead of time, sensitive data at the site away from the scrutinizing eyes of the inspectors.
The inspectors informed USA administration of their qualms and complained that their work, in the absence of professional surprise check, would be rendered futile, useless and a waste of time. The inspectors didn't agree to any restrictions put to them by the Israelis concerning the `areas' or `the facilities' they intended to check.

Ben Gurion was adamant "there will be no surprise visits", and Kennedy was determined to `go by the book', `the inspectors should apply the guidelines to the letter and produce their appraisal, independently, as in any other place in the world. Exempting Israel would be taken as precedent'.
As expected, the charismatic young American president won over the old man of Israel. Dimona was put under the Inspectors Microscope.
But for how long??

When Lyndon B Johnson succeeded the assassinated President he did not pursue the same stringent approach as his predecessor.

Dimona was completed to the best of Israel's abilities...............

For al landlubbers that saw the Tall Ship's Chronicles on TV and don't have enough.It's great book about sailing, distant shores, and the struggles and love between the crew.It's wery well written and it has 400 pages.That's big!! It's one thing though, it has way too little fotos.But them anyway you can find on the homepage of the picton castle.
But of course, if you love that kind life there is no better thing on beeing on board on the real sailing ship.Maybe for a start on a charter sailing yacht with your friends during the holidays.

Rigel was born a sailor; both parents were involved in the boat-building business in Nova Scotia. A family friend trained him as a boy, got him a job as cabin boy on the 'Ernestine' when he was twelve with Dan Moreland, captain. Years later, as a college student, the 'Picton Castle' would beckon to him with the same captain, now owner: a combination of Tom Sawyer and Darth Vader.

They were scheduled to leave on November 1, 1997 but were twenty-five days behind as they set out on the maiden world circumnavigation voyage from Nova Scotia, Canada. With a carefully-chosen crew, thirty paying $32,500 each to cover 37,000 miles from Nov. 27 to June 23, 1998, 47 ports in 22 countries and two glorious weeks in the Caribbean. Several were women.

They became more like a family than a hard-working crew from the experiences endured through rough seas and long days. Six of the crew later married. "Though memories have faded, bonds remain strong."

He adopted Maggie the cat and has lived in Savannah, Georgia, since 2001, after serving as a relief captain on a cruise boat out of Tampa, Florida. The 'Picton Castle' and her captain took another world voyage in 2000.

Several of them took pictures during the 'adventure of their lives' and a few are included in the photo section.

This is a wonderful story, about an adventure of a lifetime, but what makes it a great book is the author's character and talent -- his thoughtfulness, honesty, intelligence and keen, observant eye.

The wind is not particularly fair, but there is plenty of it, to be sure. Much of the crew, composed partly of people who had paid $32,000 to sail around the planet, jumps ship in Panama after one month under sail. I can empathize with them. Rather than Coleridge's Ancient Mariner who holds his listener spellbound with his glittering eye, we have to contend with a whiny, petty voice moaning about his fellow crew members. He seems to assume not only that he is the first sailor to discover profane language, fornication and alcohol-induced vomiting, but also that the reading public will be charmed withal. I high-tailed it out of there somewhere around Galapagos, but then I never did enjoy frat parties. The author does have a certain talent for description, and the passages about restoring and sailing the boat do hold attention. I suspect some really good fart jokes follow, but I put the book down and picked up Melville.

An amazing, amazing book. Rigel Crockett's evocative writing style brings an authenticity to this work that makes the reader feel a part of the voyage. Anyone who has spent time crewing aboard a tall ship will immediately appreciate Crockett's ability to capture all the excitement, boredom and wonder of life on a square-rigger. Reading this book, I felt as though I was part of the Picton Castle crew; working the lines, watching relationships form and dissolve, enjoying with wide eyes each exotic port and doggedly weathering every storm. This is a work I very highly recommend to all who have sailed aboard a tall ship, or have dreamed of doing so. Crockett allows us to witness not only the dynamics of the crew in relation to each other and their ship, but his own inner-dynamics. We are given the opportunity to experience this world journey just as he experienced it, with the joys of new discovery and the frustrations of everyday life.

Extremely well-written with a rare descriptive power to transport the reader totally into Crockett's world, this book works as a travel journal, a personal journey of discovery, an introduction to square-rig sailing and a record of a most amazing and unusual voyage. It is rare to find a book so absolutely enjoyable as "Fair Wind and Plenty of It." My thanks to Rigel Crockett for allowing us to join him in his journey.

This latest in the Joanne Kilbourn series gets off to a very slow beginning. At about 50 pages in, I almost set the novel aside. I had seen movies based on Bowen's previous mysteries and enjoyed them very much. So I was puzzled. But then the pace picked up. The apparent suicide of a lawyer who had confided in Kilbourn the night before is a signal that not all is right in Lawyer's Bay and,in particular,with the members of Falconer Schreve who all have lavish summer homes there. Joanne discovers that a young associate has gone missing from the law firm, supposedly to better job in Vancouver but that is a ruse.

As the plot advances Joanne learns that her former lover,police inspector Alex, is involved with the wife of one of the lawyers and appears to be implicated in a coverup. After a slow start the story races to a shocking finish.

Gail Bowen has done it again! She somehow manages to write an intriguing mystery plot and sprinkle in wonderfully normal family life elements to make for a comfortable and compelling read. With some authors, the end result would be choppy, but Gail Bowen makes it really work.

Every time I pick up a new book in the series, I feel like I'm visiting old friends who will keep me entertained from start to finish.

Gail Bowen has done it again! She somehow manages to write an intriguing mystery plot and sprinkle in wonderfully normal family life elements to make for a comfortable and compelling read. With some authors, the end result would be choppy, but Gail Bowen makes it really work. Every time I pick up a new book in the series, I feel like I'm visiting old friends who will keep me entertained from start to finish.

The mystery novels of Gail Bowen set in Saskatchewan follow the lives of Joanne Kilbourn and her family. While all entries are enjoyable, this one is particularly enthralling.

After receiving an invitation from her lawyer friend to rent his cabin situated in an area referred to as "Lawyers' Bay" for the summer, Joanne happily packs up her adopted daughter, her son and his girlfriend for what she anticipates will be a restful and relaxing vacation. While celebrating Canada Day, Joanne has a conversation with one of the partners in the "power firm" of Falconer Shreve and learns he is extemely depressed. By the end of the celebration though, he seems in better humor. So it is a shock when he commits suicide later that night.

When she learns that a young female associate appears to have vanished after leaving Falconer Shreve, Joanne's investigation leads to troubling questions. As she is drawn deeper into the investigation, the answers have a devestating affect on those she loves.

As I came to the conclusion of the novel, I said "oh no" out loud. It is a powerful ending to a very well written book. I cannot recommend this novel strongly enough.

I love the Joanne Kilbourn mystery series for a few major facets:

(1) The heroine is an independant widowed woman with a strong sense of family, and yet is not reduced to being a simpering victim or wailing emotional wreck. She handles things, and handles them as well as any one could.

(2) The strong Canadian content to the stories: be it simple things like surnames that show a european background, or native rights issues, or any number of uniquely Canadian flavours, Bowen finds a niche for them in her books that adds to the story.

(3) The mystery is always a good one, and hard to puzzle out any faster than her heroine.

Joanne retires to a languid summer at "Lawyer's Bay," where one power law firm seems to rool the roost. When a shocking suicide starts the vacation on a dark turn, Joanne once again finds herself in the middle of the lives of those around her, trying to dig out the dark secrets, and learn if the suicide was even that. When her ex-lover Alex Kequahtooway gets involved, things seem even more personal. The tension keeps rising, and as always, Bowen delivers a stunning finale. Well done.

yES, SO it is!! its about Victoria, a state of SE Australia!

( Duhhh) ...

If you live in the Pacific Northwest, don't be deceived! Its about Australia!

If you have been badly hurt-- abused, battered in or by childhood events, or by a nasty divorce, this book will speak to you. It spoke volumes to me... but then I know the author. I know what courage she had, even to write the book, let alone survive the life exeriences which inspired it!

It is readable and compelling, but i can't say hw it would have affected me if i was unaware of that which i knew of the life of the author. So, you will have to decide that for yourslelf. I do know there is evidence here that we can overcome searing pain and ugly events-- and the desire of others who should love us to hurt us. and what hurt is worse than that?

If you read this book you will be changed. I was.

I wish I could give you a review, however I have been waiting for this book, since last year October. How can you put up a book for sale, when did you know you didn't have it? Or were you thinking the books were being delivered? I am very MAD, Cause I have ordered books from here before, and they have NEVER BEEN THIS LATE. Get to poking them publishers, and tell them to make people happy, especially me, A VERY FINE.AND LOVING FAN OF MISS C'ELINE. To me she is more than Life itself. A Goddess of Song and Beauty. Please get this book, so I can READ IT!!!!!!!!! Oh by the way, since its taking so long, it should be mine FREE!!!!!

As this was a gift, I can't really review it accurately. However, the recipient was thrilled with it.
Thank you!

Initially resembling an old-fashioned, hard-boiled detective story, this novel by Graham Swift becomes, as the perspective widens, an investigation of love, man's need for love, and the sacrifices we are all willing to make for love. Private detective George Webb allows the reader to "tag along" during one day of his life in 1997, talking to his readers about aspects of his life as they impinge randomly on his consciousness. Description is not a big part of George's life, and it takes the reader some time to understand all his references in this lengthy interior monologue.

We don't know, at first, why Nov. 20 is a significant date to him or where he goes every other Thursday, nor do we know about his personal relationships with the women introduced at the beginning, or the reason he's buying flowers, or why he's had a woman's handbag in his possession for two years.

As George's recollections, memories, and observations expand, however, we gradually come to know him and his past, including his relationship with his father, his own broken marriage and the circumstances surrounding it, his alienated daughter, his womanizing, the scandal which has resulted in his leaving the police force, and his decision to specialize in "matrimonial work." We learn, too, that George's client, Mrs. Nash, is now in jail, the reasons for this unfolding even more gradually, as we come to know her, her husband Bob, and the privileged life they've led.

Always, however, our opinions of these characters and their relationships are colored by George's point of view, and we, as objective observers, learn as much about them from what George does not say as we do by what he does say. All of George's memories are concerned with the vulnerability of people who are in love, as Swift raises questions about whether we choose the people we love, or whether we are chosen by them. Does love just happen? What makes it last? What happens to lovers who are "unchosen"? And can we love too much?

Although a mystery story is not usually the framework for such a serious, philosophical analysis of love in all its permutations, Swift manages to make this work through his beautifully wrought character study of George, buffeted every which way by the loves in his life. In the lean, unemphatic prose style he first employed in Last Orders, Graham Swift presents a sensitive investigation of love with all its mysteries and ineffable sadness. Mary Whipple