By now, Richard Tedlow has gained and fully deserves his reputation for writing books and articles that are of the very highest quality. In Giants of Enterprise, he examines the lives and careers of seven entrepreneurial CEOs: U.S. Steel's Andrew Carnegie, Kodak's George Eastman, Ford Motor Company's Henry Ford, IBM's Thomas Watson Sr., Revlon's Charles Revson, Intel's Robert Noyce, and Walmart's Sam Walton. Then he wrote The Watson Dynasty in which he explains the causes and effects of what he characterizes as "the fiery reign and troubled legacy of IBM's founding father and son." More recently, he wrote Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American. In my opinion, it one of the two most important business biographies published in recent years, with the other being T.J. Stiles's The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Denial is his latest book and, in my opinion, his most important and most valuable...thus far. As he explains in the Introduction, "Denial is the unconscious calculus that if an unpleasant reality were true, it would be too terrible, so therefore it cannot be true. It is what Sigmund Freud described as a combination of `knowing with not knowing.' It is, in George Orwell's blunt formulation, `protective stupidity.'" Tedlow acknowledges that there are several short-term benefits of denial (e.g. it is soothing, convenient, allows us to live in a world we have created and thus control..."while it lasts") and that is why it is so seductive. "Denial sometimes actually works," as with entrepreneurs who refuse to be discouraged despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of new businesses fail. Also, "the inevitability of catastrophe does not mean that we personally will suffer the consequences." In most circumstances, denial does work in the short-term.

What we have in this extraordinarily informative as well as eloquent book is a comprehensive explanation of what the subtitle correctly indicates: "why business leaders fail to look facts in the face - and what to do about it." Tedlow carefully organizes his material within two Parts. In the first, he examines those who "got it wrong" (i.e. refused to face realities). They include Henry Ford and his denial of what consumers wanted, five major tire manufacturers (i.e. Goodyear, Firestone, Uniroyal, BFGoodrich, and GenCorp) who denied the significance of the "radial revolution" initiated in Europe, and A&P's denial of emerging demographics and consumer preferences. In Part II, Tedlow shifts his attention to several examples of those business leaders who "got it right" at DuPont, Intel, and Johnson & Johnson.

Here are a few brief excerpts from Part I:

Whereas Alfred P. Sloan at General Motors realized that the desires and expectations of consumers were changing in the 1920s and they wanted more and better choices, Henry Ford observed that "any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants as long as its black...He needed people to buy black cars because the only finish available was a black enamel that could be quickly baked on."

In the 1970s and 1980s, the five major tire manufacturers' denial of this new technology took place in two distinct phases. At first, they refused to believe that radial tires would succeed in the American market the way they had in Europe. Second, after it became clear that radials would indeed make it in America, the tire manufacturers denied that their world would change forever. Denial, however, does nit change reality. It simply makes reality tougher to deal with."

"What the A&P executives denied is that there are, in Disraeli's famous phrase, `lies, damn lies, and statistics.' A&P executives celebrated the statistics they liked. They ignored the statistics they did not like...Sales were growing, but at less than half the industry average. . But the lion's share of the increases were taking place by opening new stores...What was denied in this instance is that a policy that had worked well in one context [i.e. signing only short-term leases for inner-city locations] might not work well in another [i.e. suburban markets with rapidly increasing populations where developers required long-term leases]." A&P's "slow collapse" at a "grinding steady pace" was the inevitable result of relentless denial.

In Part II, Tedlow shifts his attention to business leaders who "got it right." For example, those at DuPont who recognized that the company "had suddenly and unexpectedly become far more difficult to manage." They completed an immensely difficult process of restructuring the entire company but only when it was "on the brink of disaster, in the midst of a crisis produced by one of the worst years in its history." Only then "was it able to reconcile itself to the fact that yesterday's structure was acting as a barrier against rather than an avenue toward tomorrow's strategy." And Tedlow then makes an especially key point: "Most remarkable is the absence of denial, the omnipresence of an engineering quest for facts, and the willingness to look those facts in the face even when they weren't pleasant." He then examines leaders at Intel (i.e. Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove) and Johnson & Johnson (James Burke) who also refused to "push aside hard truths in favor of more palatable or convenient" options and made decisions that required courage as well as candor.

Tedlow devotes the final chapter to providing what he characterizes as a "new point of view," one that is guided and informed by eight "lessons" to be learned, from those business leaders who, in ways and to an extent best revealed in context, overcame the "unconscious calculus" of "protective stupidity." Throughout his lively narrative, Tedlow's focus is on helping his reader understand to (a) what denial is, (b) why it is so "seductive," and (c) how to resist its appeal. The eight lessons discussed in the final chapter help to achieve that worthy objective and should be reviewed from time to time. Why? Because denial is not an all-or-nothing proposition. "It is a continuum. Individuals and organizations have the power to determine where on that continuum they fall...human brings and companies are capable of positioning themselves further toward the `facing facts' end of the spectrum than the `denial' end." Resisting denial requires a continuous "battle" that must be fought every day on many fronts.

Thanks to Richard Tedlow, those who read this book will be well-armed.

Unlike the Odyssey translations by poets Robert Fitzgerald and Richmond Lattimore, Zachary Mason's newly published version of The Odyssey takes a post-modernist approach--casual, playful, earthy, and even scatological. Using the traditional story of the Odyssey as his starting point, Mason gives his own take on various episodes from that epic, jumping around in time and place, changing major aspects of the story, adding new episodes, and providing unique points of view. Odysseus is not an epic hero here. Rather, he is an often arrogant man who loves killing, often acts cruelly, and even makes mistakes, a real man whom Athena abandons for part of the narrative.

In Mason's version of this epic, the story lines change. Odysseus himself vies for the hand of Helen and has some success in winning her. After the death of Achilles, Odysseus creates a golem of Achilles out of clay so that Achilles can keep fighting. He tells the tale of Polyphemus, the giant, from Polyphemus's point of view, that of a peaceful farmer who offers hospitality to the men whom he finds occupying his cave when he returns home, and the payment they give him. Mason gives several different accounts of Odysseus's return home (choose your favorite)-in one, Penelope is a "shade," a ghostly presence whom he cannot touch. In another, she has given up waiting for him and found another husband. At other times, she is described as still bedeviled by the suitors. In yet another, Odysseus returns to find his entire city abandoned.

Even Homer himself appears in this novel, lying in a hammock and dreaming of discovering a great book. Odysseus, on the other hand, actually finds a copy of the Iliad, written by the gods before the Trojan War, in Agamemnon's cabin on the ship. Gods and goddesses flit in and out, take the appearance of humans, play tricks, and have love affairs. Tightrope walkers, Alexander the Great, and even the doctors and nurses of a sanatorium appear and disappear.

Though some reviewers say that knowledge of the "real" Odyssey is not a prerequisite to the enjoyment of this book, all the humor depends on that knowledge. The ironies, absurdities, twists and turns, and shifts in point of view need the context of the original epic to have any meaning for the reader. Lovers of postmodern fiction, with its abandonment of boundaries and its open, free-for-all attitudes will find much to love in this novel, which looks at the Odyssey through a new lens. Mary Whipple

The central argument of this authoritative and painfully realistic tome is that we cannot meet our energy needs for the next couples of decades (or more) through the development of green sources. Messrs. Ayres argue quite persuasively that regardless of how much money the government and private enterprise put into the development of green alternatives, those sources of energy will not be developed fast enough.

They write: "Recent progress in these [green] industries has been dramatic. However, even with a crash effort comparable to the U.S. mobilization for World War II, or the Apollo program to put a man on the moon, it will take decades for these new energy industries to reach the necessary scale." (p. 2)

Instead the authors believe the solution "is to radically reform our management of the existing fossil fuel-based system so that we essentially double the amount of energy-service we get from each barrel of oil (or 'oil-equivalent' of coal or natural gas) during the years it takes to bring carbon-free renewables to the point at which they can truly begin to take over." (p. 2)

In this regard they give the example of a couple of steel companies in Indiana that captured waste heat from their operations in 2005 equivalent to a combined 190 megawatts of carbon-free energy--"more than the entire U.S. production of solar-photovoltaic electricity that year." (p. 4)

The authors reckon that the US energy economy creeps along at about 13 percent efficiency. They compare that to the 20 percent efficiency that Japan gets. They believe we can double our efficiency to something like 26 percent. They note "by using less fuel to do more work, this strategy will sharply reduce carbon emissions." (p. 5) My question is, where were these guys when everybody in the energy business was making fun of Jimmy Carter's cardigan sweaters?

Okay, the times have changed and the energy crisis has grown more acute. However, you don't have to be a professional historian to notice that World War II was fought primarily because both Germany and Japan wanted access to oil fields, the Germans in the east and the Japanese in southeast Asia. So the crisis has been coming for a long time, and so we can be pleased with this, however tardy, realpolitik contribution to a solution.

But I am not so sure that the authors are correct with their dismissal of our ability to go green quickly. No doubt the challenge is enormous, and there is little doubt that the political will to put the money into research and development is sorely lacking. This tome, despite the enthusiasm that the authors show for eventually going green, could actually put a drag on current efforts. I hope not. Nonetheless, and over and above that consideration, I agree with them that it is crucial that we increase the efficiency of our energy use.

Here are a couple of other interesting points the authors make.

(1) Increasing the efficiency of our energy use reduces the cost of energy-dependent products and services (which includes most of the economy) and thereby encourages economic activity which will drive economic growth.

(2) Increased energy efficiency will help us to maintain our high standard of living and, I would add, possibly avoid another recession or depression. Note that energy efficiency works against an increase in the price of oil, and not at all incidentally, slows the shrinkage of world-wide oil reserves in the ground.

Lest it appear that our authors are not as green friendly as perhaps we'd like, consider this from their chapter entitled "Liquid Fuels: The Hard Reality": "There's no future in spending a large part of our limited...resources...in the obsolescent technologies of the internal combustion engine, the two-ton personal vehicle it powers, and the gasoline that fuels it." (p. 101).

Or this: "...if the Chinese get anywhere near the U.S. ratio of cars to population, with anything near the same rates of fuel use and carbon emissions, they won't have enough land for the highways or fuel for the engines. Even if they did...the impact on climate would be unthinkable." (p. 102)

Furthermore in the same chapter the authors point out that corn ethanol and biodiesel from soy beans will not work as economic solutions to our dependence on fossil fuels. Additionally they point out how inefficient airplanes are. There is more than a hint here that we need to return to the use of more efficient trains to more people and goods. Perhaps this is why Warren Buffet is buying railroads.

I've only hinted at the range of expertise and knowledge that the authors bring to the problem of energy and possible solutions. The book is engagingly and energetically written (pun intended), and absolutely vital to an understanding of just what it is we are up against in terms of the possible energy crisis to come. Energy is what runs the modern economy. Without ample, relatively inexpensive energy, the world may very well turn to chaos as nations fight over supply while all the soccer moms of the developed world return to a subsistence life style resembling that of the undeveloped countries--and this possibly after a horrendous world-wide conflict.

I'm not an alarmist, and certainly neither are the authors. Nonetheless I hope that our political and corporate leaders read this important book and heed its advice.

Travel Writer Mallory Marlow is on to her next assignment, traveling to Aspen, Colorado to ask people if non-skiers can have fun on the slopes. This is a perfect way to get away, visit with an old friend and write an entertaining piece. She isn't expecting her trip to Aspen to drop her into a mystery where her high school classmate, Carly Cassidy Berman dead body turns up in a mud bath in the mega exclusive spa she owns. Now instead of writing a fluff piece, Mallory is going to play super sleuth and amidst the backdrop of beautiful Aspen, she realizes there are more suspect than motive and she needs to keep one step ahead of a killer bent on keeping her silent.

My only complaint with this story...the rush to the ending was unsatisfying. Ms. Baxter took a great deal of time setting up the ending so I don't understand the race to the finish. Otherwise, Mallory and the cast of characters will engage the reader as will the whodunit storyline. This was an enjoyable read, fans of mysteries should like.

The short attention span and corporate management of mainstream media has pushed serious investigative journalists to the fringes, with good ones like Kevin Sites forced to work independently or in unsustainable online operations. The subject of this book is Sites' year-long project for Yahoo! News in which he visited 20 war zones in a single year. The project led to some unexpected results. With so much traveling Sites did not have the time to report from each combat zone with a great amount of in-depth investigation, but on the other hand the project is a sobering illustration of how much senseless violence is taking place in the world at any given time. The rapid schedule also led Sites to dispense with standard action news coverage and to concentrate on the innocent civilians and overworked soldiers who have to take the brunt of bad decisions by politicians and demagogues. In the process, Sites comes up with incredible insights on war and politics that are as compelling as they are low-key, and his skills as an investigative journalist are complemented by a writer's gift for reaching powerful insights in few words.

America is full of pundits who think they can make big statements about wars and humanitarian crises that they have not seen in person and about which they've only heard propaganda. Kevin Sites and other courageous old-school journalists like him have really been on the front lines. Too bad the mass media is too yellow to give them the airtime that they, and their subjects, deserve. [~doomsdayer520~]

The importance of Ronald Reagan is often being debated with books on both his greatness, sort of hagiographies, and those opposing places to much credit in him (Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future). This book attepts to examine Reagan from he standpoint of his 'rebellion' against the consensus on the right and left that the Soviet Union was a fact of life. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and other powerful voices in the Republican and Democratic parties believed the USSR was part of the status quo of the world, something that would always exist.

This book posits that Reagan and those around him imagined a world without the USSR and they sought to bring it about. This 'revolutionary' ideology meant that the State Department's current policies had to be pushed aside and instead of accomidating the USSR the U.S had to push against it, rather thanc containing, it had to be done away with.

Suprisingly Reagan found a sort of soul mate in Michael Gorbachev, who also sought radical reform in the USSR. In a freindship forged in ideological combat they together helped tear down the myth of Soviet invincibility. This book examines such famous incidents as the 'tear down this wall' speech. It shows that Reagan had a very real ideology that he pursued with vigor.

An important work. It doesn't highlight the role of the Afghan war at all and this is a major dificiency, but one filled by such books as Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times. For those interested in the Cold War and Reagan this is an important study from a master writer.

Seth J. Frantzman

In this brilliant study the great minds of the American 19th century are finally brought to light in a readable text that places them in the context of America. This book traces the story of America's thinkers in the post-reovlutionary era and the world they struggled with. Of particular importance were individual rights, slavery, the raod to disunion, the uniqueness of America, the American West, the Republic as ideal, women and rights for slaves, utopia, religion's role in the New World and Empire.

This beautifully written book weaves together the personalities and thoughts of the period with the fabric of history, from the Jeffersonian times to the era of Jackson, the rise of Capitalism and the Civil War. Beggining with Paine and, as the title suggests, ending with Pragmatism, this is more than a history of thought, it is also a history of America and the dreams of its people. This book shows how European influence on American thought and the roots of some of the ideas of the thinkers and shows how they imagined a New World, a New history in America that would be uniquely American.

A wonderful history and exploration of an important theme,

Seth J. Frantzman

This is an important book from the well known scholar Rashid Khalidi whose previosu writings have usually focused on the Arab-Israei conflict.(The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood). However he has, of late, expanded his interests to examine the entire Middle East and particularly the 'western' influence and meddling in the region.

In this work he seeks to examine the role of the Cold War in the Middle East. For a long time scholars have spoken of what is called an 'Arab Cold War', the internal struggle between Arab regimes who were allied with the U.S and Russia. Egypt was a lynchpin in this for the Egyptian Nationalist government of Nasser and Sadat flirted with he Soviets for some twenty years. Nasserism also influenced revolutions in Yemen and attempted coups in Jordan and Lebanon, as well as Baghdad. Syria under the Ba'ath and the Asad family was a close ally of the Soviets. So was Iraq under the Ba'ath. On the other side were the Saudis, the Gulf States, Egypt after 1980, Jordan's King Hussein, the Yemenite royalists, Baghdad before 1968 and Turkey. Lebanon was always problematic, torn by chaos after 1976 it had numerous influences. The Palestinians too curried favor with the Soviets, especially the PFLP and George Habash.

Islamism and its rise among the Brotherhood, Hamas, and particularly in Iran in 1979 placed a third counterbalance to this Cold War reivalry in the region. Herein lies the problem with the Khalidi analysis. Khalidi wants to show that the U.S and Soviet Union 'sowed crises' in the Middle East. This follows in the footsteps of the older idea that the carving up of the region in 1918 by Europeans also 'sowed' the problems of today. But both of these views neglect Arab agency. What of Mumar Qadafi of Libya, Nasser and the Saudis? What of the Shah and the Ayatollah. All of these men used the West and operated within the contexts they needed to and each in their own way also stood up to the West. This is not to mention Saddam Hussein whose 1991 Gulf War actually pitted him against the U.S and the Russians along with others.

Ibn Saud and the rise of Saudi predates both the 1918 carving up of the Ottoman empire and the Cold War. Hardly a tool of U.S policy the Saudis have worked with the U.S and extended their influence. The revolutionary regimes, such as Nasser, also played the West, sometimes using Western money to build the Aswan Dam and inviting Soviet advisors to help them fight the Israelis. Israel too, now seen as a close aly of the U.S, once coveted close relations with the Soviets.

To ascribe all that has happaned in the Middle East to 'the west' and blame it on the Cold War ignored the agency of the Arab, Persian, Turkish, Jewish and other peoples in the region. Far from always being puppets they had great agecny, their own reolutions and movements and they choose when and where to fight their wars, wars that forced the West into the region in many cases. The U.S in fact long ignored the Middle East between 1948 and 1956 until the Suez crises for Ike to take the side of Egypt against the UK, hardly an example of Cold War 'sowing crises'.

This book is important but places too much emphasis on the importance of the West and fails to see the important role that local rulers played in decision making. While the fad is to blame others for the problems of the Middle East this book doesn't give local people credit where credit is due for their innovations and political experiments.

Seth J. Frantzman

Daniel Gordis, an American immigrant to Israel who has come to feel the pulse of the nation and its critics through his life in the country and among the Diaspora presents a seminal and impassioned defense of the country calling for a renewal of hope in its meaning. Over the years other books such as The Case for Israel and Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars have attempted to fill this role. Others have examined military solutions to Israel's situation, such as Defending Israel: A Strategic Plan for Peace and Security and the need for national renewal (Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.

But Gordis goes one step further, blending analysis of the country's intellectual enemies, such as Tony Judt and Avraham Burg, and its internal and external threats. But the diagnosis that is most important is the explanation for national renewal in Israel and among Jews in the mission of Israel. The problem is that Israeli's are forgetting the dream of Zionism, not realizing that the danger to Israel is not 'merely' the loss of the West Bank, which many Israelis rarely visit anyway, but the loss of the country entirely. The threat is not just Iran but is psychological and emotion, both internal and external.

Gordis' starting point is the Six Day War and the seeming might of Israel at the time. Gordis traces the decline of that might, although Israel's military remained powerful, the threat of the Civil Rights turned Terrorism movement of the Palestinians and especially Hamas and its allies such as Hizbullah have undermined Israel little by little. Gordis tackles the important question of how Israel can be both a Jewish and a Democratic state, acknowledging that "understandably trouble's Israel's Arabs." Gordis correctly notes the fallacy in arguing that a country cannot have ethnic and national-religious overtones. He could have gone further and noted other celebrated countries that do, such as Malaysia and Japan and how many European countries even enshrine and give special rights to national churches. Gordis concludes that "there is no alternative" and that Israel is not the U.S, it is not a secular polyglot nation, it is a Jewish state.

There are several small flaws. The name of Burg's work which has now been published in English (The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes) is written in Hebrew translation rather than its English name, there are two chapters on Israeli Arabs which are oddly non-consecutive and the author over-estimates the possibility that there might have been Civil War over Disengagement from Gaza. But these are tiny compared to the overall weight and importance of the text. Anyone interested in modern Israel and the future of Israel and the Jewish people should read this important work.

Seth Frantzman

This may be destined to become a spiritual classic. I certainly hope so. Anne Rice's story of her Catholic upbringing, her falling away and 38-year sojourn into atheism, and her eventually return to Jesus Christ and his Church made a deep impression on me.

Not everything is seamlessly related, and that may be a good thing: it lends a bedrock authenticity to her account. And though there are passages of great beauty and power, there are also stretches of a more mundane nature. That's OK. Indeed, isn't that how life is? I found the first half of the book where she relates her Catholic childhood and youth occasionally tedious, but also strangely fascinating--and in the end absolutely necessary to give background and insight to her eventually return to the Church.

It is the second half of the book that redeems the whole. The picture that emerges is of a tremendously gifted woman who all her life--even during her nearly 40 years of wandering in the desert--is being drawn into the loving arms of Christ. The description of the process she went through to return to her first Love, to Him Who is Love itself, moved my wife and me to tears as I read the book aloud.

Her brief recounting of how she came to write her vampire novels, what they meant to her as she sought to relate the struggles of lost souls in a world without God--very much in line with her own life experiences at the time--how they touched a nerve with a huge audience of lost, alienated, and marginalized people, how the critics often misread her--all this is fascinating. The background to much of this is a lifelong struggle with and confusion about gender--her own, and its proper place in the world.

Finally, Anne Rice comes across as an extremely honest and even heroic woman. She is that rare person who is completely orthodox in her theology but so captivated by God's love for her (and indeed for the whole world and everyone in it), perhaps best expressed in Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount, that she is committed to living her entire life in obedience to Our Lord's beautiful but challenging message from that passage. Consequently, her life now is one completely dedicated to loving her Lord with all her heart and her neighbor as herself. Amazingly, given her own struggles with Catholic teachings on sex and gender issues, she has found a way to do this in absolute obedience to the Church, even though she longs for changes. I find myself not in agreement with her here, but her firm fidelity to her Church despite her reservations about its teachings is an inspiration and a blessing.

Thank you, Anne Rice, for being willing to share with readers your remarkable story.

Folklore, ancient or modern, is one of the major foundation stones of the Discworld books. Human nature being another, one assumes. Discworld folklore is a trivia test among Discworld fans who will slyly ask one another [generally over a pint], if they can identify the origins of a certain figure or idea. With some slight discrepancies between UK and North American versions, such exchanges can become, well, spirited. "Elves or elfs?" is always good for starting an evening.

Pratchett and Simpson sort all this out - and much else besides - in this delightful work on matters folklorish. Typically, the prompt for the book was Pratchett chanting as he signed a previous release: "How many versions of the Magpie Song do you know?" A distinguished-looking lady gave the query a moment's thought and responded "about nineteen" Thus began the wonderful collaboration leading to FoD. It's typical also of the theme of the book. Discworld and Roundworld [Earth] are linked by the universal presence of narrativium, which Dimitri Mendeleev inexplicably omitted from the Periodic Table. Pratchett knows all about narrativium, carefully explaining how it drifts between universes, carrying ideas or stimulating new ones. Folklore on the Discworld compared to that of Earth may demonstrate strong similarities, or just vague likenesses that have been severely modified. The process is unhelpful, the authors note, in determining which world is the source of the story, which is sometimes a let-down.

The book's organisation is appropriate for what it must cover - it begins with the entire universe. From there it works its way through Dwarfs and Elves, giving us an interesting account of how the Elves, feared and despised on Discworld for their dark and evil ways, have somehow become transformed in modern times into charming little creatures who make toys for children. Drifting through space, narrativium must form some bizarre isotopes. The two witch types - those from Lancre and the Witches of the Chalk Downs are described. The Nac Mac Feegle are given a full chapter, which might be viewed as insufficient as you read it. Granny Aching truly deserves a book of her own. The chapter on Heroes is extensive, justifiably, when you discover the variety of Heroes Pratchett has introduced to us. Finally, almost as icing on a delicious cake, the authors provide a "Bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading". Plan your book budget carefully.

For those in North America who think this book might be too limited in scope to be worth the investment, think carefully of your own family ancestry. While much of the material is limited to the British Isles, no small part is derived from the rest of Europe and elsewhere. Those tales and legends your ancestors took on board ship to cross the Atlantic didn't go over the rail with breakfast at the first roll of the vessels on the high seas. Those stories survived to take root here and sprout new versions of themselves in the new environment. Go through this book and see if you can't find a few you recognise. Besides the bloody elves and the obese bloke with the demented laugh. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I read "The Ideal Wife" many years ago, and truth to tell it is one of my favourite Mary Balogh's novels. So that I was rather surprised by some of the negative reviews I read to date. This may have something to do with the fact that "The Ideal Wife" was published originally under the Signet banner where the historical romance novels were very much of the more traditional variety: sweet, engaging and not padded with intense and sizzling scenes of a sexual nature. Personally speaking, some of the authro's latest offerings have not always been my cup of tea, but I was in the mood for something romantic and uplifting and it was with relief that I noticed "The Ideal Wife" on the recent releases shelves.

"The Ideal Wife" is not going to please everyone: the characters are not fully developed (except for Abigail's brother, Boris, strangely enough), and the storyline is a very simple one with few frills: Miss Abigail Gardiner is in desperate need of a new position; plucking up her courage, she turns up at her distant relative's door, hoping to persuade to assist her. What she hadn't anticipated was that the new Earl of Severn, Miles Ripley, would ask her to marry him instead. Having just recently inherited his title, Miles lives in dread of his managing mother and sisters plans to marry him off to the beautiful Frances Meighan. Miles has no intention of marrying Frances, but how to avoid that particular marriage trap? Marrying Abigail seems like a very good idea -- she needs his protection and he needs a wife he can tolerate. But can Miles and Abigail make this marriage work? They come from very different social worlds after all, and then there is Miles' disapproving family to contend with; also unbeknownst to Miles, Abigail has a whole lot of secrets that she's keeping from him. The more time Miles spends with his new wife, the more he is charmed by her, and he is determined to make this marriage work; while Abigail has never been happier in her life. But will her secrets tear then apart?

"The Ideal Wife" is a very easy book to get into. And the authour's light prose style definitely helped with the smooth unfolding of the plot. I did however have a few reservations about "The Ideal Wife" that I do not recollect having the first time I read the book -- for example it's left to the reader to decide if Miles and Abigail are ever able to bring his mother around to their side wholeheartedly; and then there is Miles' not very believable reactions to Abigail's true nature. Miles thought that he was marrying a quiet, sensible, plain woman; when he dawns upon him that Abigail is actually quite impulsive, gregarious and rather attractive, he's not disconcerted or confused, he's just amused and pleased that he chose so well. And while I enjoyed the unfolding romance between Miles and Abigail (it did have a fairy-tale like air), I did find Abigail's decision to hide the fact that she's being threatened from Miles a bit trying on the nerves. On the whole though, "The Ideal Wife" was a nice, uncomplicated, romantic read that I would definitely recommend.

"A story about a boy and his dog for grownups", that is how the author described this book.

I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Wroblewski speak last night and found his thoughts very interesting and I believe worth sharing here. If I make an error in memory I apologize. He did not share the plot of his book and believes that novels should be experienced, as intended, by being read, not selectively exposed by others. He very politely declined to even share what type of dog he owns as he did not want readers to have any pre-conceived ideas about how the fictional breed of Sawtelle dogs in the book were imagined. He spoke of creating this story that is haunted by another story in 5 acts. And when he did read from the work he chose to read the chapter entitled "Almondine".

I have been posting my comments on books here for over 10 years. In all that time I cannot place another debut work by a writer above this remarkable work by Mr. Wroblewski. Another debut that comes to mind is Jeffrey Lent's first work "In The Fall", also a novel, and "All Over But The Shoutin" by Rick Bragg. The latter was non-fiction but his writing and story-telling skills were and remain extraordinary.

So the best I can do here is to recommend the book without qualification, to give nothing of the story away. You need only to love a wonderful story by a man who is passionate about what he writes who has given readers a book that I believe will be honored with literary awards in the near term and will be read as a classic American Novel a century from now.

Leave it to James Howard Kunstler, visionary author of The Long Emergency, to write the first great novel set in a possible Peak Oil future. Expanding on the main themes of his previous book and adapting them for dramatic impact, Kunstler tells a simple story that is simultaneously frightening and yet a bit hopeful. Surprisingly considering that detractors think he is far too pessimistic, World Made by Hand is light and airy compared to say, the utter bleakness of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

The setting is upstate New York, an area that Kunstler is convinced will survive the oil crash a bit better that the rest of the country. His hero is a former software executive turned carpenter eking out a barely more than subsistence living with his fellow townies. The outside world has become unknown to them as their only sources of news are in the form of travelers' tales and rumors. The status quo of their humdrum lives is shaken up when a new religious sect moves into town and a boatload of local traders goes missing.

Kunstler is a deft writer capable of spinning scenes both moving and dramatic. He also avoids obvious clichés. His religious cult leader turns out to be an okay guy and the inevitable strong arm militia is discovered to be greedily pathetic rather than omnipotent. The one quibble I have about the novel is its small scale. Given the grandiosity of The Long Emergency and its predictions for the future of the world this was a bit surprising. But it in no way detracts from what is an effective and well told story.