2012: Day of Reckoning Review

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(More customer reviews)2012: Day of Reckoning
Author: Daniel J. Gansle
Publisher: Infinity Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-7414-5695-8
By now, we've heard all kinds of conflicting beliefs and opinions on what will become of mankind, the planet and life as we know it after December 21, 2012. The author, Daniel J. Gansle, is well educated in the area of Mayan culture, his university degree is in Cultural Anthropology with a concentration in Mesoamerican studies. He participated in a show on Mayan prophecy for the History Channel's documentary of 2009, Nostradamus Effect. Having viewed this documentary, I was especially looking forward to the more indepth research and interpretation I was certain would be in this book. I was definitely not disappointed by my high expectations of this book. In fact, I found it to be even more detailed, well written and fascinating than I could possibly have anticipated.
The book is divided into sections. The first section breaks down the background of the Mayans, giving the novice in the study of Mayan culture a broad base of understanding, yet also manages to share information that even those with some background in Mayan studies may be unaware of. The instruction offered to understand the Mayan Codices is exceptional, possibly the best I've seen. The next section, Prophecy, contains an outstanding explanation of New Age Movements to include harmonic convergence, psychic vision, channeling, astrology, numerology, UFOs, crop circles and more, each increasingly fascinating. This section also details the predictions of Nostradamus, galactic alignment, Planet X/Nibiru, pole shifts, timewave zero and more. The section that covers scriptual prophecy is very well done and complete, easy to understand and clarifying many common misconceptions. The book includes numerous figures, tables and illustrations, all equally informative and well written.
Regardless of your personal belief system or religious background, the author has presented an outstanding look at the 2012 debate.

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Does the Mayan calendar predict doomsday on December 21, 2012, or does it prophesy utopia? What did the Maya know? 2012: Day of Reckoning the definitive book on the 2012 phenomenon.

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Endurance Review

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(More customer reviews)An absolutely unbelievable expedition and survival story. Cleary the greatest exploration of all times. Fantastic and gripping description of the hardship that the Endurance crew of 28 men had to face for one year in the harshest terrian in the world.
There are many books written on the epic voyage of Edurance. This one written by F A Worsley, the captain of the ship, who was constantly by Shackelton's side is definitely a thorough description of the entire journey, their troubles, their struggle, their joys and hope thru the voyage.
A must read for everyone. especially those interested in adventure travel, exploration and expeditions.
Also a great book on leadership lessons.

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Experiments With Magnets (True Books: Science Experiments) Review

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(More customer reviews)It is rated for ages 9-12. This book has some interesting information for younger than 10-year-olds. 7 of the 9 "experiments" (most are actually demonstrations) are interesting for much younger children however experiments #7 and #9 do not work at all as they have presented them in the book. Exp. 7: They say to wrap plastic twist ties on one end of a copper wire to hold it tightly together, but this is not possible as the other side springs loose, etc. Exp. 9 they say to tape magnets to the top inside of small box. The boxes just tip over. It is obvious they did not test this experiment prior to printing it in the book. (we used the boxes they recommended)
Overall, I'm glad I just checked it out of the library and would not recommend it as a purchase. It has a couple good ones in the beginning for VERY young children-definitely not ages 10-12.

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Ideal for today's young investigative reader, each A True Book includes lively sidebars, a glossary and index, plus a comprehensive "To Find Out More" section listing books, organizations, and Internet sites. A staple of library collections since the 1950s, the new A True Book series is the definitive nonfiction series for elementary school readers.

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View from the Summit: The Remarkable Memoir by the First Person to Conquer Everest Review

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(More customer reviews)The metaphors are almost irresistable. What does a man do after he reaches his peak? For New Zealand beekeeper and amateur mountaineer (as they all were, then) Sir Edmund Hillary, the answer was to strap on the crampons and find new peaks to conquer.
View from the Summit is an autobiographical look back at a large and heroic life. After sharing the conquest of Everest with Tensing Norgay in 1953, Hillary went on to accomplish many more firsts, any of which would have been enough to crown most people heroes. He travelled by farm tractor to the South Pole (poking the British leader of the Trans Antarctic Expedition seriously in the eye in the process). He led an expedition of New Zealand-designed jet boats up the Ganges. He was the first man to stand at both poles and the summit of Everest.
The achievement that stands out most clearly for Hillary though, is his lifetime of work in the Himalayas, building schools, airfields and hospitals. Using his fame to maximum effect, he travelled widely seeking donations, then returned to the mountains he will be forever associated with to give something back to the people who made his triumph possible.
But all these stories have been already told, and were it to merely retell them, View from the Summit would be little more than an anthology. What makes this book most rewarding is its insights into the man behind the stories. The beekeeper. The RNZAF navigator. The husband and father. In looking back on his epic life, Sir Edmund Hillary shows that mountains, rivers and icecaps are nothing compared to the peaks of human achievement, courage and compassion that he so well embodies.
Why look for heroes at the movies or in cartoons? Read this book and see how an ordinary bloke from New Zealand conquered the world's highest mountain - then went looking for more.

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THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE STORY OF AN ORDINARY MAN WHO BECAME THE CENTURY'S MOST IMPORTANT EXPLORER Adventurers the world over have been inspired by the achievements of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man ever to set foot on the summit of Mount Everest. In this candid, wry, and vastly entertaining autobiography, Hillary looks back on that 1953 landmark expedition, as well as his remarkable explorations in other exotic locales, from the South Pole to the Ganges. View From The Summit is the compelling life story of a New Zealand country boy who daydreamed of wild adventures; the pioneering climber who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth after scaling the world's tallest peak; and the elder statesman and unlikely diplomat whose groundbreaking program of aid to Nepal continues to this day, paying his debt of worldwide fame to the Himalayan region. More than four decades after Hillary looked down from Everest's 29,000 feet, his impact is still felt -- in our fascination with the perils and triumphs of mountain climbing, and in today's phenomenon of extreme sports. The call to adventure is alive and real on every page of this gripping memoir.

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Churchill's Triumph: A Novel of Betrayal Review

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(More customer reviews)"Old men, worn down by war, who couldn't properly finish what they had begun. It summed up the story of Yalta." - Author Michael Dobbs, in CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH
From February 4 - 11, 1945, Churchill, Stalin and FDR met at Yalta in the Crimea to tie up the loose ends of World War II. Each had an agenda: the American President wanted the establishment of the United Nations, Russia's entry into the war against Japan, and his personal place in history; the British Prime Minister wanted a free Poland (as, unstated, a block to Soviet westward expansion); the Communist Party Secretary General wanted territory in Eastern Europe and spoils. In the end, it was the wily, rapacious Stalin that dominated the conference. FDR, exhausted and sick and with only eight weeks to live, no longer had the mental energy to perceive and resist Uncle Joe's duplicity. And Winston, though he fought like a lion, was, much like the British Empire, no longer relevant to the larger designs of the world's two new superpowers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH, presumably solidly based in the factual history of the summit, is a fictional narrative of the conference as seen through the eyes of Winston, who, apparently ignored and abandoned by his friend Roosevelt, is beside himself with frustration at his inability to alter the course of diplomacy and appeasement.
Perhaps the most engaging character of the story is that of Churchill's manservant, the loyal but cheeky Frank Sawyers, a real person who, unfortunately, exited history after leaving his master's service in 1946. (Loyal readers of Michael Dobb's will remember Sawyers from a previous book in the Churchill series, Churchill's Hour. Indeed, Google "Frank Sawyers" and there's virtually no information on the man beyond his inclusion in the author's books - a pity.)
CHURCHILL'S TRIUMPH suffers, I think, from the inclusion of a fictitious subplot involving a refugee Pole, Marian Nowak, held virtual prisoner by the Russians and pressed into service by his jailers as a plumber at Churchill's borrowed Crimean residence, the Vorontsov Palace. The uneasy relation between the British PM and Nowak, which carried through to the end of the book set in 1963, allowed Winston to pronounce what he thought his nebulous triumph at Yalta to have been. But to me, this subplot seemed contrived and, at its conclusion, overly melodramatic. Another sidebar, this taking place in the fictitious Polish village of Piorun, was sufficient to illustrate the validity of Winston's ominous forebodings regarding Soviet intent in Eastern Europe.
The Yalta story, as the basis for a novel about Churchill, is powerful enough by itself and doesn't need embellishment. Particularly revelatory of the conference were the words of Octavius from Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar" quoted by the PM as they put their signatures to paper in the concluding signing ceremony:
"Let us do so, for we are at the stake and bayed about with many enemies. And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of mischiefs."

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Brady's Book of Fixed Stars Review

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(More customer reviews)I'd been avoiding this book probably because I expected working with parans to be difficult. I succumbed to it during a recent chest cold and it turned out to be so clearly and well written that I had no trouble getting my one-track mind off the ecliptic. Brady's discussion of the history, charting methods, and meanings of the stars/constellations are enjoyable and enlightening, often providing a constructive viewpoint where classical interpretations do not. Computers make it unnecessary for astrologers to watch the sky, and this book has encouraged me to change my habits on that count. Unlike many astrology books, this one left me feeling ~better-educated~ and ecouraged me to research further on my own. Very useful for evaluating charts with questionable birth times. Looking forward to seeing what wider use of this method may yield over the next few years. And here's hoping Brady will develop a report module for Solar Fire!

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For the first time, this book offers astrologers: Paran Maps and Star Phases for over 60 stars; new insights into the natal use of fixed stars, as well as their use in mundane astrology; extensive appendices of Heliacal Rising and Acronychal Settinggraphs and tables so that, for any given location, the dates of these risings and settings can be found; a list of 176 stars with their 21st century Ptolemaic precessed positions versus their commonly-considered positions based on Ulugh Beg's methods.

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