As all the 'Day In the Life' series, 75 or so photographers are let loose on a country (in this case, Ireland) for an entire day (May 17, 1991 for this book). Their resulting 800+ photographs depict the country and people, perhaps in ways you never thought of. Having been to Ireland myself a few times I found this book wonderfully refreshing without the contrived look often equated in the American mind of Ireland. You will find all sorts of photos from individuals at work and play, families, landscapes (how could you leave that out?), villages, sports, etc. Almost everything you could think of and a few that you would not.

It would behoove the publishers of this series to return to Ireland to compare the changes wrought in the last decade for the Irish people. I'm sure even they themselves would be amazed!

Scenes include portraits, landscapes, home life, joy, pain, rustic villages, military and a myriad of other themes.

This wonderful book will appeal to anyone interested in folklore, photography or Ireland.

Truly a remarkable record of an entire nation in a time capsule.

Weyers focuses on dermatologists because it was traditionally a field of medicine heavily populated by Jews. Weyers is also a dermatologist and dermatopatholgist himself.

The displaced dermatologists whose stories are documented by Weyers either went into hiding, committed suicide, or fled from Germany. Their stories are poignant, and the inclusion of postage stamp size photos of them is a very effective touch.

Highly recommended for anyone--not just physicians--who is interested in Holocaust studies or medical ethics

As Adelson writes in the Foreward, Dawid is "increasingly piqued by the hierarchy of privilege that prevails among Jews in the ghetto." The "privileged" do not lack food or adequate shelter while the "ordinary" Jews (which was the overwhelming majority)literally starve. Dawid, a devout Marxist, writes eloquently about these "privileged" Jews. All this privilege of the few and suffering of the majority further reinforces his Marxist principles.

This book is an excellent resource of folklore, much of which I have been brought of with or come across. This book has contributed greatly to an understanding of the reasons behind so many things that seem commonplace, such as maypole dancing (which I did as a child at school!), making daisy chains, not stepping on the cracks in pavements etc.

It's one of those books which I tend to flick open, read one entry, refer to another & then find myself wanting to explore the subject further.

One other attraction of this book for me is that it's about my own country. It seems a real shame that so many people in England seem to find other countries so alluring that they completely neglect the vast heritage of their own, turning instead to the East, the Indians etc. This book is a real celebration of our country, and hopefully will bring our customs into the popular consciousness.

However, this book also takes into account the fact that folklore is not dead, it carries on creating itself in the forms of urban legends, rumours etc, and that todays gossip could become tommorows legend.

Essentially, this is an alphabetical dictionary of English (not British, just English) folklore. The editors use a fairly broad definition of folklore and the 1000+ entries deal with nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folktales and legends, superstitions, holidays, customs, and even folk medicine and folk music and dancing. Topics discussed include: Mother Goose, Robin Hood, wassailing, the tooth fairy, Michaelmas, splitting wishbones, kissing under the mistletoe, and Morris dancing. The folkloric origins of many colloquialisms and other turns of speech (i.e. why is a ne'er-do-well refered to as "the black sheep of the family") are discussed, and there are even entries for a a few modern urban legends as well.

The entries are arranged alphabetically rather than thematically (it is a 'dictionary' after all) and tend to be fairly brief (a few sentences to one paragaph long). They do, however, have cross-references to related entries and come with citations so that those seeking more detailed information about a particular item can go find a source that treats it at greater length.

This isn't necessarily a book that everyone needs, but it is an *outstanding* reference guide and will be very useful to those interested in English culture, literature, and history. And frankly, even folks who don't really need a reference guide to English folkore will probably still find this a lot of fun to browse though. (The short entries actually make it great for casual 'bathroom reading' as it were). I don't give out five-star reviews lightly, but a well-researched, well-presented reference work like this deserves it.

A delightful read from start to finish and has convinced me to go busking round Europe next summer. Anyone who can tell me how to achieve such a trip, I would love to hear from you!!!!

The lead character, Jack, was one of those impossible men, like Indiana Jones, Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan or James Bond. Who knew that he was for real?

Donbas is his story, the true tale of a 16 year old boy's decent into the hell of the mines in the Donbas region of the USSR. His torture, his survival, his escape and his life since then is the stuff great movies are made of. So why is Hollywood sitting on their hands on this one?

Read the adventure, then rent movies like "Moscow On The Hudson", "The Owl And The Pussycat" and "Trading Places". Watch for a big, burly man with a thick Russian accent and say hello to Jacques.

Stephen Koch's largely unheralded 1994 volume Double Lives, subtitled Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West, concerns itself with a careful examination of the extensive and intricate secret propaganda campaign of the Lenin and Stalin-era Soviet Union to globalize Communism, and demonstrates how an ambitious German opportunist by the name of Willi Münzenberg successfully manipulated notable Western writers and artists into participation in this propaganda network. Koch's work answers a number of questions which have recently been brought up by conservative commentators, like Michael Medved, in discussing the role of Hollywood and the entertainment industry in so-called "Culture Wars".

Double Lives demonstrates how Willie Münzenberg, operating as a legitimate German publisher and politician, oversaw a massive media empire of newspapers, magazines, and film companies, covertly financed by the USSR, that guided Western fellow travelers and Communist sympathizers. The list of notables successfully targeted by Münzenberg and his cohorts reads like a veritable "who is who" of leftist European and American intelligentsia. Ernest Hemingway, Romaine Rolland, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Lincoln Steffens, and Bertolt Brecht were just some of the many intellectual and literary cogs in Münzenberg's propaganda and espionage machine. While some, like Andre Gide, quickly grew disillusioned and broke with the apparatus, most stayed the course preferring to gloss over the more gruesome aspects Stalin's regime in their unfailing reverence for the Communist ideal.

Koch skillfully illustrates how Stalin used the anti-Fascist movement as a cover while he and Hitler made arrangements through their respective secret services to dispose of domestic enemies. Likewise, Koch discusses at length how Münzenberg's protégé and right-hand man, a Czech Jew named Otto Katz, created, expanded, and eventually presided over an extensive espionage network that included Bloomsbury's John Strachey, the notorious Cambridge spy ring, and, in America, Whittaker Chambers and his friends Alger Hiss and Noel Field.

It would be no great exaggeration to say that the cultural history of the Western world from the 1930's on was profoundly influenced by Münzenberg's and Katz's minions and their intellectual progeny. Koch presents ample evidence that Münzenberg's agents wielded considerable influence with the Los Angeles and Hollywood cultural elites via such fronts as the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and the Hollywood League for Democratic Action. While Willie Münzenberg and Otto Katz were both eventually exterminated by the very Stalinist regime that they so faithfully and effectively served, we need not lose sight of the fact that the pro-Communist seeds that they helped sow in America during the first half of the century have by all accounts begun to beat fruit in the latter half. By successfully Stalinizing the already leftish entertainment business, while at the same time using the Hollywood allure to glamorize leftist politics, Stalin's agents prepared the groundwork for a Hollywood-led assault on traditional American 'bourgeois' values which began in earnest in the late 1960's and which has achieved critical mass over the last ten years.

Every chapter is devoted to a different region including Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Chapters begin with a short introduction that will give you a sense of the country, historic significance, and regional customs. Contact information for relevant departments of tourism are also included. Then, it's on to the matter at hand! Which castle is right for your next vacation? Each property is described in one or two pages and most entries include a black and white photograph. A handy "fast facts" section follows the description and includes basics like contact information, room types, rates, dining options, facilities for the disabled, on-site recreation, nearby attractions, and much more.

I hadn't planned to go to Europe in 2001, but now may have to change my plans....