Book Description
If you're a guitarist who's learned the pentatonic scale up and down the neck but still asks, "During a solo, how do I know what to play and when to play it?", then this book is for you. Its goal is to give you a variety of great blues licks that you can put together bar by bar to create a complete blues solo. Covers: the 12-bar blues progression, cool riffs, complete solos and more. The CD features "Music Minus Me" tracks that let you play along as the featured soloist.
Customer Reviews:
b by the b.......2007-10-08
You really know how to read music and tabulature in order to use this book.
Great Blues Teacher.......2007-08-22
I have been playing for over 35 years, taught and played professionally. This book is the real deal. If you want a book that will show you riffs and how to put them together then this is it. The riffs are arranged in 2 bar phrases that are sections of the the 12 bar blues form. You can pretty much use any 2 bar phrase in conjunction with any combination of 5 other 2 bar phrases to make a solo. You will play these 2 bar phrases and say to yourself, I have heard that riff and now I am playing it. This is not beginner stuff that merely runs up and down the blues or pentatonic scales, these are real phrases that you have heard on CDs. Buy this book if you want to really learn to play the blues!!
Instrumental blues.......2007-07-12
An excellent book/CD combo. Provides most everything you need to know to play guitar blues. (You still gotta practice though).
Excellent Book.......2007-01-26
I am 46 years old and just started to play less than a year ago, I spent most of my time learning and working scales, up and down, over and over again. (I actually listened to my teacher) This book is awesome, it has given me lots of great riffs to work with, the cd is a great tool for learning the phrasings. I have already started to experiment with my own versions of the riffs. The "Music Minus Me" tracks are great for practicing and perfecting the riffs. There are 3 different keys to work in, allowing a wider range of learning. My wife now prefers that I practice/play without head phones on. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Thanks for a great book.
Nick
Great learning tool.......2007-01-04
This book does just what it says on the box! No complications. It breaks down a simple 12 bar blues and provides plenty of 2 bar riff ideas that you can use over the backing tracks. Tracks are simple slow blues in E, A and G [2 of each] and each about 4+ minutes long. It's a great learning tool and worth buying just for these jam tracks.
Book Description
* 10 million shoppers in Britain are active members of Tesco Clubcard, the world's most successful retail loyalty scheme
Customer Reviews:
The next level of market segmentation.......2005-10-23
very good read if you want to know your customers even better.
How Tesco is Winning Customer Loyalty.......2005-09-01
Any insight you can get into arguably the most sophisticated retailer in the world today is worthwhile. This book provides a great insight into how Tesco has come to dominate UK retail and in the process fend off the competitive threat of Wal-Mart's UK business Asda.
Simple concept ... too much book.......2005-08-13
I was quite disappointed when I read this book. It explores on too many pages what could have been told in very few. I don't think that it is worth the money.
Highly Recommended!.......2005-03-31
Marketing experts Clive Humby and Terry Hunt and journalist Tim Phillips explain how British grocer Tesco collected, analyzed and used customer data to become a retail giant. Tesco paired its Clubcard loyalty scheme with jazzy information technology (IT) to set a new standard for knowing your customer. Humby and Hunt, as the collaborators behind Tesco's data-driven transformation, focus on praise, but they don't hide Tesco's early mistakes or skimp on its strategic hand-wringing. Though somewhat dryly written, the book compellingly discusses aspects of loyalty programs that don't get much ink outside the retail trade press. For example, it covers the way Tesco's accumulation of rich customer data forced some painful changes in its corporate culture. The authors also serve a sampling of delicious anecdotes and share Tesco's early difficulty with getting some customers - chiefly students - to join Clubcard. Tesco once gave students at a Q&A focus group some complimentary wine and cheese only to find that they "swiftly drank so much wine that they made little sense to anyone still sober." The book shines when discussing such early efforts by Tesco to micro-segment customers by lifestyle habits, including trying to glean individual personality traits from the contents of each grocery cart. We recommend this case study both as the story of Tesco's gutsy, groundbreaking experiment with IT and as a textbook example of how the Digital Age keeps making it possible for smart, daring businesspeople to rewrite the rules of commerce.
Sustaining a Relationship Marketing Idea: Insiders' story.......2004-10-08
It's very seldom that you get to hear the real story behind a relationship-marketing programme. This book provides a brilliant insight into the real world of a successful loyalty programme at Tesco. It is a success story told by insiders (primarily the subcontractors).
The focus is on the Clubcard, but it also contains an interesting chapter on their online shopping success that is created on the basis of many of the same competences that the loyalty card required.
I'd like to put the book into perspective by playing devil's advocate. So what's the downside of a loyalty programme? Three problems usually hinder the success: big investment, internal culture clash, and privacy issues.
1) BIG INVESTMENT. It's expensive to develop the database - and even more expensive to maintain it. Especially the latter point is usually forgotten, while most people haven't yet tried to sustain a loyalty programme. The fact is namely that it eventually always risk running out of steam after the first breathtaking love affair for both the customer and the company.
"Scoring points" has devoted some attention to the development phase, where the Clubcard was "skunk work" without much prestige in the big British retail operation. But I like the second part of maintaining the magic of the relationship even better (because this story is so rarely told). They explain how to keep the loyalty programme alive and kicking for the customers by micro-segmentation, adding financial services, creating multi-channel retailing including the web, and so on to keep the concept fresh. The book also spends a lot of time explaining how the customer data can be used to see trends and also get new understanding of the customers' behaviours that we haven't been able to before.
2) INTERNAL CULTURE CLASH. It's not easy to get everyone in the firm to be oriented towards relationship marketing and make use of the available information. Transaction marketing is usually much easier and less demanding of the organization than real relationship building. "Scoring points" also covers these issues where the competition for resources from the top management is one issue and the relationship to the shop managers and shop assistants is another area. And it doesn't happen overnight - it usually takes several years with constant focus and commitment. The programme had testing phases, and needed many quick wins in several stores to obtain interest from other shop managers. Tesco's lesson in taking the time to make relationship marketing a part of an organization's culture is very valuable - and replicates my experience from other industries.
3) PRIVACY ISSUES. Maybe your customers don't want close relationships. Perhaps your customers even resent knowing that you have collected too much information about them.
In "Scoring points", they tell a story of a wife that complained about condoms that suddenly appeared on her personalized online shopping list, since her husband didn't use them. It turned out that he actually did, but not at home. His fault was that he bought the condoms in a Tesco shop with his loyalty card that was integrated to the web solution. That's how it was shown to his online-shopping wife. So much for privacy... That's an extreme - though real - example. And it's very illuminating for the sensitivity of data that we're dealing with - even when we think we're only selling groceries.
Tesco's story should be required reading for everybody that would like to understand a long-term relationship marketing concept in depth. I find that the real strength of the book is the chapters on how to preserve the programme. This story is often untold.
Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business
Average customer rating:
- Not Free SF Reader
- Really enjoyed
- JmeascsKeinnon
- Entertaining with some jarring moments
- Good, bloated fantasy
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The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, Book 2)
Robert Jordan
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
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The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, Book 3)
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The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book 1)
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The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4)
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The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, Book 5)
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Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time, Book 6)
ASIN: 0812517725 |
Book Description
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. For centuries, gleemen have told of The Great Hunt of the Horn. Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages.And it is stolen.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
A couple of threads to this book. The party involved in going after the magical Horn of Valere, which the bad guys have nicked.
The females have to go and deal with the serpentine and savage politics of the sorceress types of the Aes Sedai, at their base, win the argument there, and stay alive.
Rand, by the end, is definitely not your rural village kid anymore.
Really enjoyed.......2007-07-29
I really enjoyed this book. This is the first type of fantasy books i have ever read and i really like it. This series was recommended to me by a friend and absolutely love it! Was very hard to put down.
JmeascsKeinnon.......2007-06-18
THis book is just great. The horn of Valere is stolen from fal Dara by Myrrdraal and something else...something even more powerful than a myrddraal, more deadly, more dangerous. Together, Rand, Lord Agelmar, Loial, and a handful of soldiers go to retrieve the horn. Rand meets Selene, a mysterious woman who appears to them in a world that could only be reached by one touching the One Power. however, she says she isn't Aes Sedai, and shows as much contempt for those so-called "Tar Valon witches" as for the Dark One himself. So who is she? I'll let you figure that out for yourselves. While Rand is busy meeting her, Egwene and Nynaeve set out for the White Tower, meeting Elayne and Min, minor characters in the Eye of the World. Their adventures lead them to a people more wicked then they had every dreamed possible; and also the discovery that the Black Ajah really exists.
However, the Wheel of Time also has its faults, like every book published.
Here are a few that i find particularly annoying.
. Characters can hardly think a sentence with out adding a, "Light!" or a, "Burn me/her!" or a, "Blood and ashes!",occasionaly a "Blood and Bloody ashes." At first i just found it amusing, but as the series progress these phrases start to appear at least once on every single page. Yes, annoying, repetetive, irritating...you get the point.
. Men, especially, Rand, are such fools. Are they always falling for woman merely because she looks good? It seems so. Rand moons after selene because, well, "Light, but she's beautiful." Sames for Egwene to Galad, "Light, he's so beautiful." Ugh! it's enough to drive one crazy, the way R. J makes such a point of this. Oh, well, the books already published, though.
Now, since i went through the negatives, i'd better do the credits, too. As follows...
. Cliff hanger on almost every chapter.
. New magical things, surprising and creative.
The Wheel of Time is a series worth its weight in gold. To read one book is like entering a whole new world, filled with prophesy, adventure, and plenty of magic; to read the next is like to live in that world, experience it for oneself. Robert Jordan is an exceptional and extraordinary writer; I highly recommend his books to anyone willing to get addicted to series.
Entertaining with some jarring moments.......2007-04-13
I found this version to be well done. The readers were dynamic, and seldom boring in tone. My one big issue with the presentation is the change on certain chapters to a different reader. Each of the two readers remain consistant in their seperate chapters with the pronuonciation of characters names and the names of places. However, the readers are not consistant with each other. This makes for some confusing moments as you try to figure out that a character is talking about the same thing/person/place that was being talked about just a chapter before. Someone who has read the series in paperback will have less of an issue, but I could see more problems for someone who is just being introduced to this book.
Otherwise, I enjoyed this audiobook. I have read all of Jordan's Wheel of Time series available, and this is an excellent presentation of his work in The Great Hunt. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good audiobook.
Good, bloated fantasy.......2007-03-30
The Great Hunt continues the saga of Rand al'Thor and his teen cronies as they search for the 'horn of valere' a mythic relic reputed to bring dead heroes back to life. Along the way, the group gets split up, several new characters are added, and revelations about Rand and his role in the upcoming battle unfolds.
I liked the Great Hunt more than the Wheel of time. The characters are slightly better written, more mature, and I liked the Seanchan. I also liked fewer dream sequences than the first and fewer appearances from the "I'm so eeeeeeevilll..." villain, Shai'tan.
Negatives: I admit I found Rand a bit tedious, though. Must every female character find him hot? Perhaps a bit of Mary-Suism there. The parts with the wookie-like Loial just held no interest for me. Also the Ais Sidai are quite stereotyped: all browns are nerdy introspective people, all reds are man-hating women, all greens idealistic.. A little too cliche for my tastes. Also, I fail to see the attraction as to why so many otherwise normal intelligent people would choose to be dark friends. The author fails to show what enticements/rewards the 'dark lord' offers for the service. Instead we see darkfriends hurt humiliated and abused. I ended up feeling sorry for most of them, which is not, I think what the author intended. Also, I think Paddon Faine has run his course, at least for this reader.
4 stars. Good. Could still use some editing and a few less characters.
Book Description
Waldo's back in the picture in a brand-new adventure! Find the bespectacled traveler in never-before-seen illustrations, along with special stickers and a slew of other novel features.
Waldo's back, and he's anxious to show you his pictures. But not so fast — you have to find them first. Enter Odlaw's Picture Gallery and admire the framed images, then try to track them down in the crowded scenes that follow. Got the picture? Now frame it, using the handy stickers at the back of the book. But your challenge is just beginning! There are hidden characters and objects to hunt for, spot-the-difference spreads, silhouettes to match with originals, and plenty more. And don't even think of cheating: virtually all the art in here is new or previously unpublished, and as maddeningly intricate as ever. Happy hunting!
Customer Reviews:
Amazed, Delighted, & Absorbed.......2007-07-19
I bought this book for my boyfriend so we could do this together and share our childish side.
Both of us were extremely happy with the book, once you start you cant stop. Every book has posed a challenge but this was the best yet.
Great Choice!
shocked and dismayed.......2007-04-30
I've always been a fan of the waldo books and so when I saw that there was a new one available I jumped at the chance to buy it. Little did I know that this particular book would be filled with nothing more than [...]. I was horrified when I sat down with my son to read it. Don't let the wholesome cover fool you. These pages are filled with lewd and disturbing images. The mermaids were particularly offensive. And the Waldo that I once knew was nowhere to be found.
As interesting..........2007-02-07
This book is as interesting as the other books.
I'm happy with my purchase. ^o^
wheres wally.......2007-01-09
this book is great for kids. Kids therelittle brains going for ages. There are so many things to look for. Great imagination.
Where's Waldo? The Great Picture Hunt.......2007-01-09
My son loved this book! He is 8 and is very interested in the Waldo series. I recomend this book to anyone who collects the Waldo books.
Average customer rating:
- The Perfect Gift To Leave In Your Young Readers' Easter Basket This Year...
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The Great Easter Egg Hunt (Look Again Book)
Manufacturer: Puffin
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The Night Before Easter
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Curious George Goes to a Movie (Curious George)
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Read To Your Bunny
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The Night Before Thanksgiving (Reading Railroad Books)
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The Night Before Halloween
ASIN: 0142407534
Release Date: 2007-02-01 |
Book Description
With its suspenseful treasure-hunt plot, this magical picture book set in the land of the Easter bunnies offers more than two hundred hidden objects to find, puzzles to solve, and intriguing clues that lead to a surprise ending—a meeting with the Great Easter Bunny himself! When Tommy receives an invitation from his eccentric aunt Jeanne, he immediately sets out to find her, but he discovers instead the Easter egg factory, a wild jelly bean machine, the place where chocolate bunnies are created, and much more. Brimming with extravagant detail, Michael Garland's bright illustrations will keep eagle-eyed readers busy for a long time after the last fuzzy chick is found and the last puzzle is solved.
Customer Reviews:
The Perfect Gift To Leave In Your Young Readers' Easter Basket This Year..........2006-01-19
Young Tommy awakes on Easter morning to find that his clever Aunt Jeanne is leading him on another one of her holiday-themed journeys. This one, however, leaves Tommy following a white rabbit in a pink vest through an Easter wonderland. Throughout Tommy's adventure, he meets up with a 10-foot-tall chocolate rabbit, encounters an egg factory, is introduced to a noisy jelly bean machine, and even attends an Easter Parade down Fifth Avenue. One that features many things that don't belong, such as Santa Claus, and a leprechaun. But it's not until Tommy makes it to the egg-shaped palace of the Great Easter Bunny that he is reunited with his beloved Aunt Jeanne.
Michael Garland is not only a talented artist, but wonderful at creating a holiday-themed I SPY-esque book that will keep young readers occupied for hours upon hours as they search for various hidden pictures. Tommy is a fun character who follows an adorable white bunny - a la ALICE IN WONDERLAND - in an attempt to meet up with the Great Easter Bunny himself, as well as his aunt. Garland shows here that he is a talented prose-writer, and weaves an entertaining story that must be read over and over again. THE GREAT EASTER EGG HUNT is the perfect gift to leave in your young readers Easter basket this year.
Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper
Amazon.com
In addition to being a testament to the undeniably beatifying properties of American excess--literary, political, chemical, you name it--Hunter Thompson is the high priest of the ad hominem attack. Anyone unlucky enough to get in the way of his satirical sledgehammer will end up with soup for brains. Still, even Thompson needs a good villain to get properly lathered up; that's why he peaked simultaneously with America's 37th president, Richard Milhous Nixon. Tricky Dick was Thompson's dark-jowled, pale-calved Muse, and with his departure Thompson seemed to lose his place a bit. Swatting flies with a baseball bat.
You need look no further for this writer's best: this collection of pieces, first published in 1979, spans all of Thompson's primo era, including short pieces and selections from longer works. The Great Shark Hunt sports a few articles filed by a pre-Gonzo Hunter S. Thompson, which show flickers of passion but no real fire; the first experiments with the author's drug-fueled brand of journalism at the Kentucky Derby; and finally the gigs that made him an American institution, in Las Vegas and on the 1972 campaign trail.
Thompson's style is so unique that a reader is tempted to think that he leapt, fully formed, into Gonzohood. However, along with the crazy, careening prose itself, one of the auxiliary pleasures of The Great Shark Hunt is the map that it gives of Thompson's ascent (or descent, if you prefer) from the workaday hyperbole of sports writing to the hell-blast vigor of his later work. The drugs are, by and large, a distraction--lifestyle points that get in the way of the genuinely perceptive journalism that Thompson created. (But they are there, always, and in quantity.) If you're looking for insight into the underbelly of America, Hunter S. Thompson is your best and only guide, and The Great Shark Hunt is an excellent place to begin the grim safari. --Michael Gerber
Book Description
Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling "Gonzo Papers" is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style.
Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed "gonzo" -- "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful '60s and '70s.
Customer Reviews:
The Essential Hunter Thompson.......2007-01-04
Much like Sony's "The Essential" series, which collected the greatest songs from the greatest musicians of the past century, "The Great Shark Hunt" is an anthology of the greatest of the Good Doctor's work from his peak period of the 60's and 70's.
Perhaps no other American writer captured the essence of that tumultous era better than Hunter S. Thompson. He was simultaneously of his time and above his time, and invented a new kind of journalism, dubbed "Gonzo." All objectivity was thrown out the window as the author thrust himself into the action of the stories he was reporting. Whether it was dropping acid at a police convention in Las Vegas, sabotaging the presidential bid of Ed Muskie, or running for sheriff of Aspen, Thompson's antics are legendary, and "The Great Shark Hunt" is a great way to get acquainted with the man and the writing for which he is best remembered.
Hilarious and very perceptive.......2006-12-27
It is a pretty rare experience for me to find an author who can make me feel as though I actually understand the culture the author is describing. Many authors are perfectly capable of explaining a culture or a period in time, but I don't find many who do it simply by describing their experiences, but Hunter S. Thompson does so in this book.
This book covers a lot of American culture in the 20th century. Now, I am not a US citizen, nor have I read much US history, but I found Thompson's stories very perceptive and entertaining. Even his coverage of something that sounds as dull as Richard Nixon's presidential campaign and fall are just brilliant. This is one of those few books that has made me laugh out loud.
What I fundamentally love about this book is that it really makes me feel like I'm standing beside the author, in his stories as he tells them. Thompson has a wicked sense of mischief, which goes very well with his "Gonzo" style of journalism. I think that "Gonzo" journalism helps his stories become so vivid because Thompson makes sure that he is not separated from what's going on. In fact, Thompson is often central to the story and yet that doesn't result in the kind of ego-centric story telling one might expect.
If you have any interest in US culture, from 1960 onward, and a love for very perceptive, though often drug addled lunatics as protagonists, then I imagine that you will love this book.
Should be required reading for all classes of journalism.......2006-11-21
The Great Shark Hunt: Gonzo Papers vol. 1 is a hysterical and brilliant piece of his mordant wit, this great heir to Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce and H. L. Mencken, the Great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
The book covers the exciting and gut laugh-filled evolution of Gonzo from about 1963 to 1976; including his infamous article from 1970 in which Gonzo arose from his open shell and, soaring aloft, emitted the primal and insane roar; The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.
This is a very facinating era of Thompson's life and career as he slowly makes a beast of himself and his writing, probably the best social commentary since Voltaire.
Glorious Madness.......2006-10-05
This is great stuff from a fearless freak. Thompson never fails to both entertain me as a reader and educate me as a writer. He was unhinged and did not hold back. This is a great collection of dazed vignettes, crazed events, and hazed intents. The guy was out there, but it never drowned his talent. A must-read for those who want a deeper sense of the madness of our times, or who simply want a good read.
Thompson's Best. Period........2006-05-23
I've read all of Thompson's books, and nothing approaches Shark Hunt for sheer ferocity of intelligence, perception, and the gleefully lunatic Gonzo outlook. He put himself fearlessly and hilariously in the middle of his stories and thus changed both modern journalism and history itself as he rocked through some of the wildest times this country will ever see.
These are HST's finest magazine pieces from the 60s and 70s, chosen and edited by the author. His takes on Nixon and Ali and Vietnam are startlingly prescient, so dead-on in the hindsight of three decades that one begins to wonder why Thompson isn't ranked with Mailer and Capote and Vidal as one of modern America's most trenchant essayists.
He's certainly funnier than all of them put together, with a uniquely skewed stance full of outrage and insanity. Sure, F&L In Vegas gets all the attention, but that book is mainly full-on Gonzo, and, while truly classic, hardly touches this collection for depth of insight and understanding of one of
the most vital and transformative periods in American history.
The essay on Haight-Ashbury alone is worth the price of this tome; he lived there before the lunacy started and stayed through to its peak, and presents the tale as only one
who tripped through the flaked-out soul of that time could.
There are sentences in that piece that are pure poetry, some of the finest dissection the 60s ever saw...and that's just the tip of this glorious literary iceberg that melts happily from the hand into the mind.
Thompson had a style that is oft-imitated but never approached, and here we see him crafting that style as the years go by, emerging as one of the most unique essayists this country has ever produced. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that HST is the most hilariously readable of modern American non-fiction writers...and this is
his magnum opus.
If you like to laugh while you think about what really matters, this is your baby.
Not to be missed.
Book Description
In the bitter winter of AD 44, the Roman troops in Britain are impatiently awaiting the arrival of spring so that the campaign to conquer the island can be renewed. But the native Britons are growing more cunning in their resistance, constantly snapping at the heels of the mighty Roman forces.
When the most brutal of the native tribesmen, the Druids of the Dark Moon, capture the shipwrecked wife and children of General Plautius, quick action is called for. Two volunteers from the crack Second Legion must venture deep into hostile territory in a desperate attempt to rescue the prisoners.
Centurion Macro and his optio, Cato, find themselves slipping out of camp in the dead of night to reach the General's family before they are sacrificed to the Druids' dark gods. They know they are heading towards an almost certain death, and their only hope is that, with sheer courage and ingenuity, they can outwit the most ruthless foes they've ever faced.
Customer Reviews:
The eagle formula continues.......2007-06-21
A good read, with Macro and Cato continuing to get into and out of scrapes. The first in the series was a very good read and spurred me to continue. This was the second I read, even though out of sequence (The Eagle's Conquest is the second of the series). I am a bit disappointed in this one because of the profuse amount of British slang, e.g.,"Oi! Careful, you hopeless wankers. I've got your number." I may read more of the series but I'm not as enthusiastic as after the first.
Third Gear and Going.......2007-01-15
Well, once you've got a good thing going, it's easy to grab the next book by an author. Not since Lawhead have I been anticipating the next release so eagerly. Some might say the pacing is slow in spots, the heavy-duty action of a Roman Legion is replaced by another focus, and so on... well, this is a fine read by a good author. The Druid aspect is quite well done and as a whole, Scarrow paints an inviting landscape and characters, though it's the foggy barrowlands and harsh conditions of an isolated mission. The blade is still sharp here.
I love this series........2006-01-29
I got sucked into this series from the first, and all you can do is avoid starting. The chararacters are pals after the first books.
Macro and Cato vrs the Druids.......2005-07-29
The family of the commander of the Roman legions have been kidnapped by the most vicious of all Druids. Can Cato and Macro rescue them before they are sacrificed to the pagan gods?
And they get help from an unlikely source. The future war queen, a teenaged Boudica.
(...)
A fantastic read.......2005-04-11
Probably the most exciting adventure for Macro and Cato so far in the series (admittedly that's three books - but if Scarrow can keep improving then fans of historical novels are in for a rare treat).
After the Roman governor of Britain loses his family to some wild druids Macro and Cato are called in to search for them and if possible rescue them. A tall task to ask of anyone, but as ever the lads are game and get stuck into the enemy as only they know how. But this time they have the help of one Prasutagus and his fiery bride to be Boudica.
The adventureis gripping and literally page turning, and hte characrters play off each other like seasoned Quentin Tarantino pros. The dialogueis crisp and credible, and the languageis exactly what you would expect from soldiers. Thisis no prissy Cornwell novel, these guys are three-dimensional with all the failings of real people. That's why the seriesis so successful; despite the fact that we know Macro and Cato are going to get out of whatever hot water they are in, their escapeis never signposted and the readeris kept on tenterhooks right up until whatever qualified victory they achieve at the end.
Frankly, a military adventure series doesn't get any better than this and when you compare it to the swathe of poor quality fiction set in Rome that finds its way into bookshops, Scarrow's books shine out like a jewel in a middle of the midden (to coin a phrase).
Customer Reviews:
Poor grammar and typos further marr an already questionable resource.......2006-04-18
As others have mentioned, grammar and typos undermine your faith in the book immediately. The meat that is to follow is uninspiring.
Cool book.......2004-05-28
I have been trying to get someone to help me pay for racing. All this time I did not know why some guys had more money than me. The Great money Hunt helped me understnd what it takes. Now I have two sponsors and nearly have my whole budget for my regional stock car series. Sam
What I needed.......2004-05-20
I am a karter and need money to improve my racing career. This book made sense of lots of things about racing and business my Dad and I did not understand. We have our first sponsor and I have begun my first full racing season. Thank you Great Money Hunt. Sam
Because of this book we are racing!.......2004-03-18
I could never work out why there are so many apparently illogical sponsors in motor racing. What could a pharmaceutical company get from race car sponsorhsip? Then we found this book. Now we get it and using the principle and secrets enclosed we now have sponsorship. Thank you Great Money Hunt.
Essential Information.......2004-03-11
We have a small club racing team that was unsponsored. We followed the instructions and now have enough money to add a second car for my son. This was more help than we expected.
Customer Reviews:
A real listening pleasure.......2007-01-27
I enjoy the varied readers of these English and American Gothic masterpieces.The readers have achieved a fine balance between dramatization and plain reading.
Although some of the British authors are new to me, especially the wickedly witty, Saki, I have not read several of the old Gothic American stories since high school English class, so they return as a surprise to me when heard in a more mature way now. For instance, I was driving along listening to "The Black Cat" and was so shocked at what was happening in the story that I turned it off. Then I drove for a while and realized I simply had to know what happened next, and turned it back on. To me that is a sign of great literature.
Of course, many of these short stories are not for children and the parent who complained about their content might want to pre-screen the stories her child listens to.
Hearing these stories again has been a real listening pleasure for me.
Maybe too Classic.......2007-01-05
I got these hoping to interest my kids in some of the classics but alot of these stories were just plain gory! I'm no prude but some of these authors had real ideas about torture. Maybe for older kids as Halloween Ghost stories.
Customer Reviews:
The magnum opus of one of the world's leading scholars on comparative mythology.......2007-08-20
[Review written in May 2004]
Series Review: Historical Atlas of World Mythology
Where to begin ?
Joseph Campbell, without exaggeration, is probably one of the 100 greatest scholars of the 20th century. He was a genius, a polymath, a world-travelling polygot, a brilliant teacher and a master storyteller - all in one. On top of that, he was also one of those exceedingly rare individuals who was able to stand astride the disparate realms of both academia and mainstram culture with equal aplomb ... and be warmly embraced by both. Take a brief glance at the list of his works (at the Joseph Campbell Foundation, or my own site) and you can't help but be amazed that a lone human being could cover such breadth, and such depth, in such a broad field in a single lifetime.
His influences have been far reaching and profound - George Lucas considers himself to be a student of Campbell, and openly credits him as the source inspiration for the whole Jedi Knight / Force motif in Star Wars.
Campbell's two most well known works (amongst the general public anyway) are "Hero with a Thousand Faces" and "The Power of Myth". However, among academics, his magnum opus is considered to be The Historical Atlas of World Mythology (henceforth 'HAoWM'). It is the crowning achievement of a long and incredibly prolific career - much of it published posthumously, shortly after his death.
It's a 4 volume book (actually it's 2 volumes, each with 2 parts) published in a single-spaced tri-column oversize 11" x 16+" softcover format, and it's packed to the gills with hundreds of numbered footnotes, endnotes and numbered illustrative photos & art ... all of them meticulously and exhaustively enumerated in the bibliography.
The HAoWM is stupendous in it's breadth, depth, and ambition - it is nothing less than an exhaustive documentation and analytical discourse on the entire sweep of Human mythology, across ALL peoples, nations and times ... all the way back to the earliest known traces of humanity's very existance. It's very dense, toothsome reading, and I'll try to give you a feel for why.
Campbell is a wonderfully patient and helpful mentor, but as I've already mentioned above, he's also very polymathic, and although he goes out of his way to help his students and readers to follow along by providing ample numbered endnotes and footnotes and explanatory digressions, the material is still VERY dense and far roaming ... and it requires a fairly decent amount of effort (and polymathy) on the part of the reader in order to keep up.
Taking just half (1/2) of one (1) page at random, the writer, while elaborating on some subtle & profound point or observation that he's patiently trying to get across to the reader, roams freely & comfortably amongst a huge array of topics and references ... from hardcore archeology & oral traditions (includuding his own persona travels to distant tribes in polynesia or northern japan), to philosophy (i.e., references to plato, aristotle, tribal eldars like Black Elk, etc), to world history, to psychology (i.e., references to Freudian & Jungian archetypes), to art history (i.e., paintings and commentary by people like Cezanne, and people who research and comment on said artists, like James Joyce), to epistemology, to philology (ex: hindu and buddhist terms given in Indian & Japanese terminology, just for completeness) ... and all of THAT is squeezed into HALF of ONE PAGE. It's toothy stuff, and it requires frequent pauses and re-readings and skip-aheads & skip-backs to & from to the footnotes and bibliography ... and sometimes to a dictionary. However, don't let me scare you off from making the attempt, because the effort is very rewarding and highly recommended - but it takes effort and commitment, and Campbell's exhaustive references give you most of the waypoints you need to follow along.
Like most of the more worthwhile endeavors in life & artisty, you get out what you invest in ... modest efforts are usually rewarded with modest results, and greater results usually require correspondingly greater effort. Reading Campbell is very similar.
It's a rich, fulfilling, and deeply illuminating journey of discovery.
The world would be a much better place if more people could spend the time to study works like this one.
Books:
- Calm My Anxious Heart: A Woman's Guide to Finding Contentment
- Christine Falls: A Novel
- Crafting the Very Short Story: An Anthology of 100 Masterpieces
- First Aid for the Pediatric Boards
- Fundamental Managerial Accounting Concepts
- Gulliver's Travels (Signet Classics)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2)
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1)
- He's Just Not That Into You (The Newly Expanded Edition): The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
- Hell Hath No Fury (Multiverse, Book 2)
Books Index
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