The descriptions and maps make it possible to explore locations at a leisurely pace, noting spots one would find of particular interest. Though the 'walking tours' outlined are within the reach of most, those who cannot walk distances should not be deterred, because there nearly always are local buses (if not Guide Friday tours, which are convenient and relatively inexpensive) that can bring one from the station to the town centre. I have never had difficulty exploring a new city using the Daytrips maps, and I am by no means gifted with any sense of direction.

Though not aimed solely at those with Brit Rail passes, this book can help those who hold them to have maximum benefit. (Those travelling from the States, used to a country that is geographically massive, and where major cities of interest can be separated by hundreds or thousands of miles, often need time to adjust conceptually to that one may see much of England by travelling by day return. One cannot get the full benefit of rail passes unless one gets away from the mindset that any journey means an overnight stay.) Since, for example, the most common flexipass allows one four days of travel, not journeys, using Daytrips to select destinations, then returning to the home base in the evening, means exploring four cities - not going in one direction on the first and returning on the next 'day of the pass.'

This edition follows the format of the prior one with each of the fifty-five destinations being allotted its own chapter. A brief introduction to each place is followed by directions for getting there that may include transport by underground, rail, car, boat, or bus, as applicable. The discussion always includes the distance from the city, which London train stations service the area, a summary of the schedule ("at least hourly from Victoria") and the duration of travel. The guide then cites a few pubs and restaurants in the area (generally those providing English fare), with a one sentence review. A walking tour is provided with a map and commentary on the various sites of interest encountered along the way. Also included is a section entitled "Practicalites" that lists the dates and times major attractions are not open to the public, the address and phone number of the visitor center (although they spell it centre), and other information pertinent to someone planning a visit.

Destinations vary from those within London itself (e.g. the City, and Westminster), to those located fairly near the city (e.g. Windsor Castle, Richmond and Hampton Court), to those located over one hundred and fifty miles from London (e.g. the Welsh city of Cardiff, and York). The latter destinations can take two hours to reach by rail (each way) and may be more amenable to an overnight stay than a one day visit.

Also included is an excellent section on managing the British rail system (it really is quite simple).

The major advantage of the guide is that it tells you how to get to and explore many places of interest in southern Britain without having to join expensive and restrictive organized day tours. It gives you the freedom of choosing your own itinerary; if you want to spend your time lingering over a long lunch, shopping, or just enjoying the ambiance, you can do so. There is no: "The bus will leave at exactly 2:15 this afternoon, be sure to be here."

For the first time visitor to London who only wants to take in the grandeur of the city, the book seems to be of limited value. But if a trip outside London, such as to Stonehenge or Bath, is contemplated, the guide can prove quite valuable. It is highly recommended.

Bring the inlaws!

Or how about the Bread and Puppet Theater and Art Museum in Glover, Vermont? You can see a surreal collection of huge puppets that are used in political demonstrations, see entertaining puppet performances, and enjoy the free bread that is given out after each show.

You can find information on these and almost a thousand other wacky, out-of-the-ordinary attractions across America in "Eccentric America," a new book by Jan Friedman. The book contains an extensive listing of the weirdest and strangest events, museums, festivals, and attractions in the United States.

Imagine leaving your home in California (for example) and heading out to visit relatives in New Jersey. This doesn't have to be a boring trip. Using Eccentric America as a guidebook, you can create bizarre adventures as you travel across the U.S. Visit the Katydid Insect Museum in Arizona, and, if it happens to be July, you can move on to Roswell, New Mexico where the Roswell UFO Encounter Festival and Intergalactic Food and Fashion Extravaganza is taking place. If you think the drive across the center of the country is dull, you haven't stopped at the right places. From the Totem Pole Park in Oklahoma, to Carhenge in Nebraska, there are plenty of strange things to see on your way and all are listed in Eccentric America.

Friedman writes in an entertaining, tongue-cheek-style style. You can't help but laugh when reading some of the descriptions. When describing the Forevertron, a giant steel sculpture park in Wisconsin, she writes, "Inventive in vision and astounding in scope, the Forevertron is a gargantuan contraption designed to shoot Dr. Evermore into space using some kind of 1890's magnetic lightning beam propulsion that only he understands." The attractions are catalogued not only by state, but also by type and date (if the attraction is an event), so it is easy to find just the kind of weirdness you are looking for.

I found this book not only entertaining but inspiring as well. It's exciting to see what other eccentrics have created given enough time and a place to do it. Eccentric America makes me want to take a road trip!

This book is a hard slog but a fairly good read. I read 10-15 pages at lunch every day and finally got through it. It's a very informative book, and quite illuminating.

The British undoubtedly caused many of the problems the Irish experienced in the past and continue to experience today. However, the Irish have had a hard time letting go of the past. What is to be done? One cannot make the past different, only the present. Although one might sympathize with the Catholic Irish, and even the IRA, the future must be different. Protestants are not going back to England or Scotland. In fact, they can no more return than those of British or Scotish descent living in North Carolina can go back to the U.K.

Read this book to better understand the dilemmna in Northern Ireland, and the possible ways peace may be found.

Terry Brown is able to convey a true appreiciation of the depth of Western martial arts with both his words and his images. Anyone who seriously wishes to learn about these skills should seek out this book and add it to their collection.

The group of course was Cosa Nostra, a shadowy group of professional criminals that formed a tightly knit family of crime. Their ranks were highly structured, with bosses, captains, and soldiers. Originating from the violent land of Sicily, La Cosa Nostra quickly took advantage of the turbulent world of Italian politics and the rising worldwide narcotics trade. Their access to narcotics gave them almost limitless wealth, which enabled them to bribe and corrupt whole swaths of the Italian government and the justice system. Judges, prosecutors, police chiefs, ministers, and even governors were not safe from the mafia's reach, as they would kill literally anyone to make sure everyone else followed orders. Soon, mafia wars sprung up, where hundreds upon hundreds of people would be killed. The narcotics fueled group spread to every city in Italy and even into Europe. The mafia was allied with the Gambino and Genovese crime families of New York, the Asian triad gangs, and the Colombian cartels. Their power was limitless, and few dared challenge them. As the 1980's progressed, and thousands were killed, two prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paulo Borsellino, took up the challenge.

Falcone and Borsellino were not just fighting against the mafia, they were fighting against a society where organized crime was a way of life. Many of their superiors did not want to rock the boat and constantly impeded the work of the two prosecutors. At the same time, the two men were under constant death threats, as the mafia sought to kill both them and their entire families. Even with these obstacles, Falcone and Borsellino managed to bring many mafia chieftains and soldiers to trial. Surprisingly, they were initially successful, sending thousands of them to prison. However, the wheels of corruption quickly turned, releasing many of the prisoners and destroying Falcones reputation. At the same time, the infamous boss of bosses, Toto Riina, consolidated the entire Sicilian organization by murdering anyone who stood in his way. Soon, the violence and political changes forced the government to make changes. However, the only real change came when both Falcone and Borsellino were tragically murdered. Then, the people rose up and demanded justice. Soon, most of the government had been thrown out, and thousands of mobsters found themselves in jail for life. It was too late for Falcone and Borsellino, but they triumphed in death.

Stille provides just an amazing amount of knowledge as he deftly narrates an amazing range of crime and politics. It really is a general history of Italy at the time, with many different mentions of Italian society, politics, and economics. The differences between Northern Italy and Southern Italy are explained, as is the maddening bureaucratic nightmare that is European socialism. Millions of taxpayer dollars disappeared into a black hole of corruption and incompetence, and the voters had little power to do anything about it. Stille provides a great history, and one of the best examples of personal bravery I have ever read.

Mr Stills makes it all easy to understand and feel the tenison that must swirl in the very air of Sicily. My admiration goes out to those involved in this strugle. and to Alexander Stille for recording it so well.

The plight of Marius and Jean-Pierre away from the ravage and hypocritical Catholic rule and superstitious villagers keep young adult readers at the edge of the page while dealing with age-old issues of good verses evil.

"Curse of a Winter Moon" is a historical novel set in 16th century France, a time when the Catholic church was ruling with an iron fist - condemning commoners who could read (and consequently think for themselves) as heretics, punishable by death. Marius displays to young readers a maturity that is able to discern right from wrong, strength to endure the villager's contempt for his family, and a hope-based survival mindset for a better future.

I used this novel as a read-aloud in my 10th grade classes. I strongly recommend this novel not only for its believable historical accounts, but also for the gripping story of Marius' eye-opening experiences to the harshness and cruelty of the world and the tenderness and loyalty of the bonds of family. My students would agree, this novel is truly a must read!

The book is filled with many interesting characters--the old woman who cares for the family, the quiet but strong blacksmith father who has more than one secret, Marius, who is so good at playing the lute (like an old form of guitar), and his uncle, Brother Gabriel, a monk who travels all around Europe and is now in the area.

Even after reading the book, I still wonder about some of the characters and what might have happened to them later. Did Jean Pierre stay safe? Did Marius become a professional minstrel? What about Brother Gabriel--did he continue to travel and have an influence on events during such a dark time in history? I hope author Mary Casanova will consider a sequel to this wonderful book. I am looking forward to talking with my 8 and 11 year old daughters about the book after we read it together.

This book should be read as an adjunct to the author's other major book along these lines on power to the powerless.

The most gripping and troubling conclusion that I drew from this book is that the United States of America is today much closer to where Czechoslovakia was in 1968 than anyone other than the Chomsky's and Vidal's might be willing to admit. We have both a federal government and a national corporate economy that thrives on elitist secrecy and blatant lies--even our non-profit sector is corrupt, from the Red Cross to United Way to many others. The people, the citizen-voters, truly have lost all power, as well as access to the information that might give them back the power, and this is indeed a black, absurdist-realist situation.

On a more positive note, the author offers up, in the course of a long series of interviews, a number of ideas that are relevant to America today, as well as to any other emerging or re-emergent democracies in the making.

1) Model of behavior. When arguing with the center of power, do not get side-tracked with ideological debates over right or wrong. Focus on very specific concrete things (e.g. term limits, campaign finance reform, neighborhood economics) and stick to your guns.

2) Popular coalitions. Non-violent non-partisan popular coalitions are the core means of taking back the power. They represent a means for bring together groups of people from widely divergent backgrounds, with genuine social tolerance.

3) Informal networks. Even under conditions of repression and censorship, informal networks of dissidents and quasi-dissidents can be effective in sharing information through samizdat publications. [With the Internet, these possibilities explode, although caution must be taken on the fringes since the Internet is easily monitored and the more radical leaders could be declared seditionist "combatants" ineligible for their rights as citizens...speaking of the Soviet Union, of course, not America.]

4) Man versus Machine. Havel reaches his own conclusions founded in Czech literature and his own experience, with respect to the urgency of restoring the kinship and human connections that used to drive politics, economics, and other aspects of organized living. He is at one with Lionel Tiger among many others, with respect to the terribly consequences of the industrial era in terms of de-humanizing decision-making and allowing remote elites to treat individual workers as dispensable cogs in the machine, whose lives matter not a whit.

5) Neighborhoods, Politics "From Below". He joins the authors of the Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson) and of IMAGINE: What America Could be in the 21st Century (Marianne Williamson) in emphasizing the vital role that neighborhoods must play in any democracy. From political self-governance to sustainable economics to low-cost healthy agriculture to cultural cohesion, neighborhoods are the sin qua non of democracy--without active neighborhoods, one can go so far as to say, national democracy is a sham, a false theater, fully equivalent to the centralized, repressive, inefficient totalitarian control states of earlier eras.

6) Small Numbers Can Make a Difference. I was struck by how few were the original dissidents and organizers--in some cases, 20-30 in number, in others 70-80. Earlier studies have suggested that Hitler took power over millions with just 25,000 people. One can only hope that the anti-thesis is true, and that the 50 million cultural creatives can take back the power by getting serious about organizing across neighborhoods and into a national network.

7) Art and theater matter. Even under conditions of severe censorship and control, art and theater can be the manifestation of uncensored life, "life that spits on all ideology and all that lofty word of babble; a life that intrinsically resist(s) all forms of violence, all interpretations, all directives....here stood truth..."

8) Absurdity is a warning. Nihilistic and absurd theater or other works of art are a caution. They "do not offer us consolation or hope (but) merely remind( ) us of how we are living: without hope.

9) Truth can be misappropriated. The author experienced the misappropriation of his words and was both hurt and enlightened, ultimately creating a play about truth, the circumstances in which it is said, and the whom, why, and how of it.

10) Great men doubt themselves. Most touching are the author's many retrospective and current references to his insecurities, to his doubting himself even as he made history and became President of Czechoslovakia.

11) Writers live to tell the truth. This is certainly not true of most American writers who write for money, but it reflects the ideal and merits thought.

12) Change the atmosphere. If you can do nothing else, strive for a moral mobilization and a change in the atmosphere of governance, at any level. We cannot even begin to conceive the magnitude of the positive changes that can occur overnight if the people begin to speak truth among themselves. Work toward a process "in which people's civic backbones (begin) to straighten again."

13) Role of the intellectual. While I the reviewer would churlishly doubt that America has many intellectuals right now, the author's concluding words on the role of the intellectual strike me as very important: "...the intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressure and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems, of power and its incantations, should be a witness to their mendacity."

Any person concerned about the corruption and misdirection of their government and their corporate as well as non-profit entities, will be provoked and inspired by this book. It speaks to the future of human life as it might be, were we willing to stand up straight and be counted at citizen-voters, active at every level beginning with our own neighborhoods.

Previous volumes in the series are: Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849; Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859; Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865; and Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871.

It was during the final decade of his life, 1871-1881, that Dostoevsky wrote Diary of a Writer and his greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Many pages of Frank's fifth volume deals with analzying these two works (140 pages for The Brothers Karamazov alone).

With impressive literary scholarship, Frank throws light on the historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and literary setting within which Dostoevsky created his works of art, novels of great psychological depth.

For example, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "Dostoevsky, the only psychologist, by the way, from whom I had anything to learn; he is one of the happiest accidents of my life, even more so than my discovery of Stendhal."

Dostoevsky traced the roots of the evils in Russian society to a loss of religious faith. By "religious faith" he meant specifically the Christian faith of the Russian Orthodox Church. He thought the Roman Catholic Church was a distortion and perversion of true Christianity. (See the harangue Dostoevsky puts into the mouth of Prince Myshkin in Part Four, Chapter VII, of The Idiot.

Of particular interest is Frank's discussion of Dostoevsky's philosophical thinking (framed, of course, within a Christian worldview), such as his ruminations on Russian nationalism, rational egoism, and the freedom of the will, and his grave concerns over the adverse moral and political effects of atheism and nihilism.

Frank soft-pedals Dostoevsky's notorious anti-Semitism, seeking to exonerate his hero as being simply "a child of his time."

Although one finds many things to dislike about Dostoevsky, one cannot help being impressed by his literary genius. Recognizing the excellence of Dostoevsky's art, Frank devotes the lion's share of his volume not to the man himself but to the man's literary production.

While this is surely not the fault of Joseph Frank, one is depressed by the seemingly endless fare of Russian sectarian bickering and murky political maneuverings. One breathes a huge sigh of relief to escape this oppressive atmosphere.