His Majesty's Fourth Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)What a fun read! Besides that, you got the feeling that the author (who was born in 1927) was writing as someone that had gone through some hardships himself, mainly the depression. The characters are alive and simple as the times they lived in. There is fighting & romance. What's not to like?! Buy this book for a quick read that transports you to different time, told by an author from a different generation.

Click Here to see more reviews about: His Majesty's Fourth

Bucky stood on the top step of the town's trading post and tavern, next to the large doors of Fort Number Four. Bucky was watching Mary Stearns stride toward him with a big smile. With her flaming red hair, and long legs hidden by a homespun dress, Mary was the prettiest woman in the world to Bucky. He was in love with Mary, but he knew he could never have her. Mary was married to the town coward, Ben Stearns. The only way Bucky could have Mary was if some Indian's arrow was to set her free from her husband. Bucky led the local militia into battles against his arch rival, Black Hawk, who swore that Bucky's scalp would one day hang from his lodge pole. Who would finally get Bucky? Would it be Mary or Black Hawk?

Click here for more information about His Majesty's Fourth

Ultima Thule: Explorers and Natives in the Polar North Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is the ultimate book on Greenland with a sensitive approach to the inuit people. Both breathtaking and informative. Respect of nature, art and people. A masterpiece.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Ultima Thule: Explorers and Natives in the Polar North

An illustrated history of 170 years of Arctic exploration and its effects on indigenous peoples.Ultima Thule is the terrible and yet fantastic story of European and American exploration in the polar north. Based on excerpts from the explorers' logs counterbalanced by Inuit testimony, it brings to life both sides of the clash that arose when white men arrived in the Far North, dreaming of conquest and believing that they brought with them a civilization superior to that of the indigenous peoples they found. Today, the outlook for the Inuit and the polar environment is bleak: the people and their landscape are in danger of disappearing for good. But according to Jean Malaurie, the situation is not altogether without hope.Heavily illustrated with period photographs, engravings, artifacts, and drawings, the book gives the readers the impression of having an entire museum of North Pole history in their hands. 650 color and black-and-white photographs.--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Click here for more information about Ultima Thule: Explorers and Natives in the Polar North

The Polish Deportees of World War II: Recollections of Removal to the Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Piotrowski, the author, dedicates this book: "To the victims of Soviet crimes against humanity". Everyone has heard of what the Nazis did to the Jews, but who ever heard of the 2-3 million Polish gentiles also murdered by the Germans? Even fewer have so much as an inkling of the millions of victims of Communism. The Soviet genocide directed against Poles, reliant as it was on shootings and especially mass overwork and starvation, does not capture the imagination as much as the assembly-style gassing and cremation performed by the Germans. But it was no less real, and no less effective.
All the while, Britain and America were silent and indifferent to Poland's fate. They were in the throes of a Stalin-appeasing mentality, and increasingly saw Poland as a nuisance that undermined Soviet-western relations. As Piotrowski makes it clear, "Appeasement only emboldens the aggressor". Judging by subsequent events of the Cold War, did it ever!
The deportations were the Soviet Union's attempt to gradually destroy the Polish population of the eastern half of Poland that had been conquered in 1939 (Nazi Germany conquered the western half). Piotrowski estimates that 1.7 million Poles were deported to Siberia and other inhospitable regions of the USSR. About half the deported Poles died a slow death there. Only the unexpected German attack on its erstwhile Soviet ally in July 1941 limited the scope of this genocide by putting a halt to further deportations and eventually prompting the release of the emaciated but still-living captive Poles.
Piotrowski describes the harrowing experiences of the Poles in Soviet captivity through the eyes of several eyewitnesses, including "Eva", my aunt. The Communists proved themselves to be masters in psychological torture as well as physical torture. Thus "Eva" was falsely told that her relatives had been put to death. To mock her Christian beliefs, she was dutifully told that her relatives were now "among the angels in heaven". She was thrown in a dungeon in which there was a decomposing human corpse. Miraculously, she was finally released, along with the rest of the family. The surviving Poles lost everything but their lives. After the Soviet "amnesty" (in which only a part of the still-living captive Poles were released, not all as promised), the Poles gathered in five geographic regions, including Iran and India. Most of the survivors never returned to Poland. Poland had already been given away by the west as a Soviet satellite with a Communist puppet government.



Click Here to see more reviews about: The Polish Deportees of World War II: Recollections of Removal to the Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World

Among the great tragedies that befell Poland during World War II was the forced deportation of its citizens by the Soviet Union during the first Soviet occupation of that country between 1939 and 1941. This is the story of that brutal Soviet ethnic cleansing campaign told in the words of some of the survivors. It is an unforgettable human drama of excruciating martyrdom in the Gulag. For example, one witness reports: "A young woman who had given birth on the train threw herself and her newborn under the wheels of an approaching train." Survivors also tell the story of events after the "amnesty.""Our suffering is simply indescribable. We have spent weeks now sleeping in lice-infested dirty rags in train stations," wrote the Milewski family. Details are also given on the non-European countries that extended a helping hand to the exiles in their hour of need.

Click here for more information about The Polish Deportees of World War II: Recollections of Removal to the Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World

Famous Last Words Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It's a cool book with interesting quotes. The pictures are nice and the layout is easy to read. I really enjoyed it.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Famous Last Words

Over 2,000 notable parting sentiments, from Socrates and the Marquis de Sade to James Dean and Elvis Presley. This sometimes funny, frequently moving compilation offers a glimpse at the deathbed departures of kings, courtiers, poets, painters, saints, villains, murderers, and martyrs through the ages. Among the famous last words are Bing Crosby's breezy sign-off: ``That was a great game of golf, fellers''; Lawrence Oates' farewell to Captain Scott on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole: ``I'm just going out. I may be some time...''and Civil War commander General Sedgewick's final miscalculation: ``They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--'' A fascinating record of our final thoughts at the brink of the unimaginable. Jonathon Green is a noted lexicographer and the author of many books, including Slang Down the Ages. 160 pp 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 200 b/w photos & illustrations

Click here for more information about Famous Last Words

Japanese Spears: Polearms and Their Use in Old Japan Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The book is very well prepared and historicaly well based.
The writer deeply investigated the context between the history of the polearms and the history of the imigrant nations. The book richly describe the culture of the polearms as Naginata, Yari, Nagimaki weapons and their existing and historical forms.
We can read about also the religional background of the weapons.
The book also shows the practical martial use of polearms in limited sections.
There is no any word about the forging and crafting processes, so who are interested in it, had to choose an another book.
I realy enjoyed to read the book, as a "fan" of the Japanese nations and weapons.
The only bad thing what I have experienced, that it was realy difficult to connect to the pictures in the secdond section of the book.
There are realy detailed, labelings and explanations of the origin of the written resources, but there is no any direct link for ex. numbers or identification codes to the pictures. I had to use the Japanese names for identification, but sometimes it realy makes nervous.
For any cas the book is recommended for the ones who are fan or interesting for the Japanes polearms. I think it worth the price.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Japanese Spears: Polearms and Their Use in Old Japan

This is the first book in English to provide a fully illustrated guide to the use of polearms ranging from the earliest halberds and spears reaching Japan from the Asian mainland to the sophisticated naginata, nagamaki and various forms of yari used by the Japanese samurai through the medieval period. While the sword remains the best known of Japanese weapons, it was the halberd (naginata) and then the yari that dominated the battlefields up to the early seventeenth century, and thereafter the yari became an important status symbol to many warrior families. Additionally, the authors focus on the actual method of use of these weapons, hitherto an almost unknown aspect in the West.

Click here for more information about Japanese Spears: Polearms and Their Use in Old Japan

Boarders Away, With Steel: Edged Weapons and Polearms of the Classical Age of Fighting Sail, 1626-1826 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)There is a vast literature on naval warfare in the age of sail. William Gilkerson's two volume set, Boarders Away, deals with the fascinating topic of boarding actions and their weapons and tactics. Although covering the entire age of fighting sail, his emphasis is on the period 1775-1815 and on the British, French, and American navies.
Volume I, With Steel, covers edged weapons and polearms. Chapter I gives a general description of boarding actions. Included is a detailed account of the 1813 action between HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake. Other chapters discuss boarding axes, boarding pikes, cutlasses, officers swords and dirks, and miscellaneous weapons (knives, belaying pins, flensing spades, etc.)
The text discussed these subjects in lavish detail. Included are are extracts from logs and other primary sources. The folio-sized volume is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of drawings and photographs. The cover photo above is an example of one of the colored plates.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Boarders Away, With Steel: Edged Weapons and Polearms of the Classical Age of Fighting Sail, 1626-1826

An all-encompassing study of naval armament under fighting sail. This first volume covers axes, pikes and fighting blades in use between 1626 and 1826 - tracing their development in the navies of England and Northern Europe through that of the United States. Heavily illustrated with art and photography including an 8-page color section.

Get 32% OFF

Click here for more information about Boarders Away, With Steel: Edged Weapons and Polearms of the Classical Age of Fighting Sail, 1626-1826

Where Water Comes Together With Other Water: Poems Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Carver can break your heart without seeming to try, and there is that quality in many of these poems. Written in the mid 1980s, in the last years before his death, they are that mix of bittersweet memory, melancholy, and joy taken in the here and now. Living with poet Tess Gallagher in a house overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington (Carver grew up in Yakima, Washington), he writes of the days that pass there, the frequent rains and the boats passing on the water, and he tracks the course of fleeting emotions, often triggered by long-forgotten memories.
He has this ability to discover the extraordinary in the absolute ordinary, and he can bring together ideas with images drawn from everyday life that disturb and shock the heart, as when he recalls an old relationship while describing the drops and smears of blood left in a kitchen sink after gutting fish. As with his stories, these poems are written in plain, conversational language while evoking at the same time the darkly inexpressible. Simple and direct on the surface, they are like being in a small boat on deep waters.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Where Water Comes Together With Other Water: Poems

Click here for more information about Where Water Comes Together With Other Water: Poems