Book Description
Reba Freeman has loved two men in her life. Her current husband, Carl, has supported her through their twenty-year marriage and given her all the material wealth a suburban wife could hope for. Reba is comfortable, if not necessarily content, in her life with Carl and their blossoming teenage daughter, Marisa, until she learns that her first love and first husband, Joseph Thomas, has been detained by the World Court of Human Rights.
Joseph, a peaceful, gifted Liberian student, had dreams of returning to his native land and educating his people for the betterment of his country. Reba respected his strength and wanted to support his cause, but didn't accompany Joseph to Liberia after graduation due to mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, she must decide if finding out what has happened to her first husband is worth the risk of losing Carl and turning her comfortable world inside out.
Alternating between present-day action and a series of flashbacks, Accident of Birth creates an intricate tapestry of suspense, drama, and romance, while also looking at the moral and cultural differences between African Americans and Africans. Neff boldly exposes the rift between American comforts and the traumas of the world we choose to ignore, creating a moving and memorable story of courage and hope that readers will talk about for a long time.
Customer Reviews:
Love is Life.......2005-10-22
"Reba, a marriage is only happy when out of two minds comes a single future. A man and a woman may love each other very much. But they must also share a sense of purpose and a similar vision. They must be happy with the way their lives unfold together, and satisfied with the manner in which they live." Heather Neff captured my life in these sentences. Her book is a realistic portrayal of the circumstances life can pound into out hearts. She has created two characters who feel not only how to love, but how to live when living doesn't seem worth it. She has molded a story that reminds the reader f how hard the truth can truly be. Her characters will remind you of people in your life and you will relate to what she is saying. I think anyone who has ever given up someone or something in order to 'do what is right', must read this book. I can assure you, you will finish the book in less than two days-you won't want to put it down. READ this book.
Education is Political.......2005-01-23
ACCIDENT OF BIRTH by Heather Neff is not just a story of a romance between an African-American woman and a Liberian man; it is also a story of political unrest in Liberia. When Reba Freeman attends a fictional historical and religious Christian college in Baltimore, Maryland, she meets and falls in love with Joseph Vai Thomas. Joseph is majoring in Education with hopes of returning to his country to form a school to educate his villagers. What begins as typical college lust quickly spirals into a passion-filled romance with consequences neither Reba nor Joseph can imagine. Something so egregious occurs that Joseph runs back to his native land and Reba is left to wallow in her sorrows in the United States.
Twenty years later Reba is married with one child and living in an affluent Northern Virginia suburb. She also works for the Office for the Placement of Permanent Refugees. Joseph is imprisoned for crimes against humanity in Switzerland. Upon learning of his fate Reba uses her professional training to locate him, but her unresolved feelings wreak havoc in her household.
Neff expertly takes the story from present day to the past and back again as she allows the reader to become fully enveloped in Reba and Joseph's courtship and its affect on her family and friends. Utilizing settings such as the Baltimore-Washington metro area, Detroit, Reba's birthplace, and the cities of Monrovia and Taylorville, Liberia, we get a visual sense the characters' surroundings. We are treated with lessons of the political and educational climate in both the United States and Liberia and finally, the relationships and misunderstandings among African-Americans and Africans. Neff allows her characters to grow and change through the course of the novel with detailed accounts as to how and why. Excellent work, highly recommended and could serve as a basis for a truly educational discussion.
Reviewed by Dawn R. Reeves
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers
An Engaging Book Of Social Importance.......2004-12-05
Accident of Birth is a compelling drama about Reba, a woman caught between two loves. Her present husband Carl and her ex husband.
A story about holding on then realizing you have to let go and move forward. When her ex husband is held for crimes against humanity Reba is compelled to help him, putting a strain on her marriage to Carl, but Reba needs closure. This is a great book club discussion book because of the many issues it represents. The relationship between Africans and African Americans, the difference in traditions and customs. This makes you painfully aware of the social standards in America and the need for understanding and tolerance. The unjust treatment of people simply from an accident of birth. I was left satisfied, with an ache and a smile.
An engaging book of social importance. A powerful read.
Reviewed by:
Dawnny
Book Description
Vividly atmospheric and evocative of the rituals and magic of Celtic culture, The White Mare enchants readers with the gripping saga of a defiant struggle for freedom, cast as a journey of the spirit and heart, undertaken at unfathomable risk, and for the highest stakes.
Customer Reviews:
Disapointed.......2007-07-01
I picked this book up at the library and started reading . . . it seemed like it could be a good story, but it's full of sexual scenes that I personally don't want to read and try hard to avoid. Definitely not a teen book and if this what the other books are like, then I'd say, don't read them.
Exactly what I was Looking For.......2007-05-04
I had been looking for a book like this for years, not quite knowing how to dig into the historical fantasy genre deep enough to find this exact period and setting. I had been satisfied by writers such as Diana Gabaldon, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Morgan Llewellyn, and I gladly put Jules Watson right up there with that trio of incredible authors. She vividly describes the life, the people, the countryside and you feel like you are with her every step of the way. I think that the romantic resistance created by the characters and their positions in the world works very well, and the tension we are left with is more than enough to tie us to these characters with love and longing for their future.
An Alban Adventure.......2006-08-03
This book and it's sequal "The Dawn Stag" are engrossing stories of early Scotland. The character development is excellent - the reader feels exactly what the characters are thinking and feeling. The main characters come close to dieing a few too many times, but it makes for a good read. It says these are a trilogy, but I can't imagine how there would be a third book since the author wraps up the story at the end of the second book in a way that would leave little room for a third story, atleast not about these main characters. Personally, I couldn't put these books down and their memories still linger many days later. There is enough "magic" mixed with history mixed with interesting characters that it is never off balance.
It's not perfect, but it sure is a fun read.......2006-04-23
There was a reason that it seemed the Romans conquered territory so easily. That was that the people who lived in Gaul, Britain and Germany were not united, and had to fight off the enormous threat of the roman army as individual tribes-so basically they had no chance.
This book is set in Scotland-or Alba as it's called in the book. Scotland was never really conquered by Rome-they just built a wall around it in the second century AD. But the White Mare is set before that, when Rome was still trying to conquer it.
Rhiann is a priestess of the goddess who has undergone a traumatic event. But she's also the Kings niece and is therefore bound by blood to produce the next heir for the kingdom of Epidii. Right as the king dies an Irish prince sails into her life and becomes her peoples champion against the threat of Rome. Then she married him (Eremon) in a total political match-meaning no romantic relationship- and they run around trying to unite the various tribes of Alba against the Romans.
There are some fantasy elements in the book, and the author admits she warped history to suit her needs-but I would still call this historical fiction.
This book is a little like a soap opera but that's what made it so fun to read. Something is always happening in it-there are no dull pages. Each character is firmly drawn and very alive and if their lives are more action packed and melodramatic it can be excused. You will be on the edge of your seat during the tense chapters and cheering for your favorite freedom fighters. You will feel the need to run to Scotland and hike in the heather and swim in the lochs. This is one fun book.
Five stars for the fun reading. I look forward to the sequel-which I ordered after reading the first chapter of the White Mare.
I stayed up all night reading!.......2006-02-09
I am so swamped with work and yet I stayed up all night last night (fianlly turned the light out at 5am) because I couldn't stop reading! I was so completely absorbed that I am in a haze still, thinking about Rhiann and Eremon and all the main characters of the novel whom I feel like I know so well. I am so excited to read the next book in the trilogy and am buying it right now. I haven't felt this obsessed and transported by a book in a really long time. What a story!
Customer Reviews:
Review from the Publisher.......2001-03-09
For children 10 and up. The many inspiring perils and adventures of St. Paul - all endured to bring the Gospel to heathen nations. A truly great inspiration to both children and adults.
Average customer rating:
- Informative and educational!
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Catering, Sales and Convention Services (Food & Hospitality Series)
Ahmed Ismail
Manufacturer: Cengage Delmar Learning
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Similar Items:
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Event Planning : The Ultimate Guide to Successful Meetings, Corporate Events, Fundraising Galas, Conferences, Conventions, Incentives and Other Special Events
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Event Planning Ethics and Etiquette: A Principled Approach to the Business of Special Event Management
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On-Premise Catering: Hotels, Convention & Conference Centers, and Clubs
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Human Resources Management for Hospitality
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Hotel, Restaurant & Travel Law (Hotel, Restaurant and Travel Law)
ASIN: 0766800377 |
Book Description
Anyone with an interest in the catering and convention services industry will want to have this new book. In-depth explanations and hands-on examples provide the reader with the day-to-day functions and activities involved with catering and convention services. Designed as an introductory text for college-level students or for beginning professionals, this guide contains comprehensive reference information.
Customer Reviews:
Informative and educational!.......1999-07-30
This book gives great hands-on ideas, suggestions and information for people in the hospitality industry. There are a lot of "real world" stories that will help to prepare a first time worker in the catering sales industry. And much more to use throughout your catering career.
Amazon.com
This small volume, companion to an exhibit put on by the Mariners' Museum of Newport News, Virginia, brings readers a little closer to understanding the lives of the passengers and crew of Titanic. The numerous photographs include not only portraits of people on board the ship, but snapshots of several artifacts--including Titanic postcards and passenger lists, as well as John Jacob Astor's gold cuff links and the medal given to the crew of the Carpathia for their rescue efforts.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful Book.......2007-01-20
This book is great for a quick read on the Titanic. The pictures are wonderful and filled with interesting captions. Also, there are brief anecdotes, such as the story behind Mr. Astor's watch. The book discreetly handles such a terrible human tragedy.
Thank you Newport News, VA; Mariners Museum!.......2004-10-04
This is one of the best White Star Line Titanic books I own. As a Titaniac I find the pages of this book to be seen many, many times. Having been to the touring exhibit in Norfolk, and the exhibit at The Mariners Museum I appreciated the effort. This would make one want to visit The Orlando, FL musuem instead of those other things like Universal, or Disney World. Any Titanic, Olympic, or Britannic enthusiast would love this book to add to his/her collection.
The Fortune of owing "Titanic: Fortune & Fate".......2002-11-02
There isn't much to say about the amazing book exept that throught the words and photos of the passangers' letters, diaries, quotes, tickets, staterooms, clothing, ect.; you get an exellent feeling of who was on the Titanic, not just a group as a whole, but you begin to know them as individuals.
Believe me, this "Fortune" is one exellent investment!!![...]
Titanic Fortune and Fate.......2001-01-17
This book must adorn your bookshelf if you are a serious Titanic fan. The book contains everything from a complete passenger list, tantilizing facts and amazing pictures of artifacts that will make any "Titanic-maniac" feel like they're owning the real thing!
As you read the book, you can't help but feel as though you've been transported back to 1912 and feel a part of history...
This book is definately a keeper, Good Work!
Excellent.......1999-12-24
If you're a Titanic buff, then this book is a must-have. The pictures of the artifacts and people, and the factoids that go with them make the stories come alive. What really got to me was the entire passenger list stating the names, ages, class, and if they survived.
Average customer rating:
- Outdated forms, author verbose and boring
- A Business Approach to Interior Design
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Designing Your Business: Strategies For Interior Design Professionals
Gordon T. Kendall
Manufacturer: Fairchild Books & Visuals
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Writing For Interior Design
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Estimating for Interior Designers
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Designing a Quality Lighting Environment
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Interior Graphic and Design Standards
ASIN: 1563673266 |
Customer Reviews:
Outdated forms, author verbose and boring.......2007-02-12
I am required to have this book for a business class for interior design. I have only had it for 3 weeks and I have to say it is not that good. I am sure a lot of teachers have a hard time finding an adequate book for interior design classes and am sure this is the best they could find (that's why it's getting the 3 stars.)
The chapters cover the specific lectures, questions about the lecture, diary of a novice interior designer on her 1st job where you have to help her fill out forms and a commercial example of interior design work with more forms to fill. The forms are in the book as well as on a CD that is part of the book. The CD forms are in Excel and very poorly formatted... so every time you type, you have to reformat everything. I would have expected them to be in Adobe with areas to fill in information. Also, the forms that need to be filled are redundant and it seams like you keep entering the same information over and over, just in different forms. I am surprised and embarrassed that living in the 21st century interior designers are taught to still fill paper forms, where almost all other professions have specialized computer systems where all the information would be entered (ONLY ONCE) and numerous reports could be obtained.
The lectures are very hard to read, specially is you are trying to answer the questions at the beginning of each chapter... the author is very verbose and boring. Again, I realize this is a business book but I don't necessary think it had to be boring or that expensive!
A Business Approach to Interior Design.......2005-08-15
This is a text aimed at the student of interior design. It brings together the expertise of a business and legal professional to the practice of interior design. It aims to make students savvy business people as well as creative interior designers.
As such it includes business organization, legal and ethical issues arising in the practice of interior design, and business finance and accounting practices common to the profession.
The text features a strategic approach that guides readers in planning their careers with their personal goals and competencies in mind. The information in the book is tailored to the specific business needs of residential and contract designers. A CD included with the book features business forms and worksheets from the text for use in the books assignments as well as for later use in the students' own careers.
Book Description
The Lost Oasis tells the true story behind The English Patient. An extraordinary episode in World War II, it describes the Zerzura Club, a group of desert explorers and adventurers who indulged in desert travel by early-model-motor cars and airplanes, and who searched for lost desert oases and ancient cities of vanished civilizations. In reality, they were mapping the desert for military reasons and espionage. The club's members came from countries that soon would be enemies: England and the Allied Forces v. Italy and Germany. When war erupted in 1939, Ralph Bagnold founded the British Long Range Desert Group to spy on and disrupt Rommel's advance on Cairo, while a fellow club member, Hungarian Count Almasy, succeeded in placing German spies there. Ultimately, the British prevailed. Saul Kelly's riveting history draws on interviews with survivors and previously unknown documentary material in England, Italy, Germany, Hungary, and Egypt. His book reads like a thriller - with one key difference: it's all true.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent subject, but desperately tedious..........2003-12-31
Given the subject matter of the book, the exploration of the Libyan desert (this forms the historical basis of the movie "The English Patient") and the subsequent forays of the LRDG in World War II, one would expect a gripping tale of explorers, adventurers and action but instead, the author contrives to make this one of the most driest narratives to be found outside of the Gilf Kebir!
The biggest fault is the authors tendency to throw both personalities and place names about with abandon, something tighter editing I'm sure would have resolved. I found myself constantly having to flip back to previous pages to find out just who is this person the author refers to. Place names are also just as overwhelming. It may have been helpful to have maps alongside the text showing the various journeys undertaken, as it was all to easy to lose scope of just how immense some of the exploratory trips undertaken were.
Despite the tedious nature of the writing, I found "The Lost Oasis" still quite interesting in places, particularly the show of Italian brinkmanship over the Libyan/Sudan border. Also, as I came to grips with the distances and places travelled, I became aware of just what an extraodinary time Bagnold and his chums had travelling the desert searching for the Zerzura Oasis.
If you are a diehard desert fan, you probably would get this book for your library, but I would recommend for a casual reader (like myself) to look elsewhere if you want a good read of what was a very exciting era of modern desert exploration.
A detailed account of desert exploration and desert war.......2003-09-14
This book tells the real story of the desert explorers who inspired Michael Ondaatje to write The English Patient. While the real events were less romantic in the narrow sense, they were even more exciting as adventures. These men -- and one woman who played only a brief part -- were daring and determined, often driving hundreds of miles across unmapped desert landscapes or flying rickety aircraft to remote sites deep in the Sahara. Some of their feats, such as rescuing refugees from Libya, deserve the word heroic. Most of the men observed a code of conduct that now seems like a leftover from the age of chivalry. Their companionships were strained by the outbreak of the war in North Africa, when both sides drew on their expertise. In that context, Kelly introduces us to the little-known exploits of the British Long Range Desert Group. Here and in some other parts of the book, he is too thorough in describing the details of missions. Some careful pruning by an editor would have made this interesting book even better.
a good example of marketing and packaging a very weak work.......2003-08-24
Hard to believe this gentleman teaches anywhere. This book makes what should be an exciting narrative pathetically boring. He did yeoman's work in the archives of both Britain and Itlay; and for someone interested in this subject, it is certainly a useful as a detailed almanac of documents, at times a microscopic recitation of them. All sorts of larger historical contextual questions come to mind, but are never addressed. Just the plodding on of documented events, with the reader hoping he will break out of his shell and tell it as a story. If any book screamed for an editor, this does. It rides on the cachet of being the 'real story"of "The English Patient".
Infrequently, one comes to clear, plain language passages that summarize the detail he has presented; but these are as rare in the narrative as the freshwater wells in the desert he describes. Most of it is seemingly endless regurgitations of documents, abbreviations, and [arabic place nanme] map locations that are virtually impossible to follow....it begs for a detachable map that one can hold next to the text.
All the published trade reveiws are amazingly kind to this book, which reads like an undergraduate paper in which the author is trying to chalk up as many citations as possible. A good re-write and an editor should have been mandatory. This certainly looks like it was an academic 'press of last resort' publication.
Details, Details, Details.......2003-08-04
Think of the worst university press history book you have every read and then multiply by 10. The first two chapters must present at least 50 individual names.
Hunt for Zerzura and WWII.......2003-06-07
...Autumn 1940 and the British were up against the Italians in North Africa, the Germans not yet having arrived in that theater of war. In his "The Lost Oasis," Saul Kelly writes of one unit that: "The men of the LRDG patrols were quite a sight on their return to Cairo from a month's trip in Libya. Unwashed (for the water ration did not allow it), bearded, burnt brown by the sun and clad in ragged shirt, shorts and sandals, they had the air about them of a bunch of wild-eyed Biblical hermits.
"The success of the first fully-fledged LRDG operation, which covered 4,000 miles, showed the capability of small armed units to travel anywhere in the interior of Libya." The expedition's leader was Maj. (soon to be Lt.Col.) Reginald Bagnold, who had put the Long Range Desert Group together in a lightning five weeks, once his submission of the idea had the approval of Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell, British Commander-in-Chief Middle East.
In an age of desert explorers, Bagnold was the greatest of them. In 1935 he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal for leading the 1929-1930 expedition to search for the "lost oasis" of Zerzura in the southern Libyan Desert. He also was awarded the RGS' Gold Medal, the "ultimate accolade for an explorer."
Bagnold combined personal drive, toughness and stamina with engineering curiosity to an extraordinary degree. He modified Henry Ford's new Model T Ford to equip it for long distance driving across harsh desert terrain and crossing the high sand dunes that seemed to go on forever. He devised his own sun compass and other navigation equipment. He saw places never seen before. But he did not find Zerzura, the searchers for which founded the Zerzura Club in 1930 in a Greek bar in Wadi Halfa.
When World War II came, Bagnold, given carte blanche by Wavell, was able to bring numerous Zerzura Club members into the LRDG. They were a brilliant, desert-hardened collection, but of such an advanced age (mid-40s for Bagnold) as to dismay the troops rounded up by Bagnold for his command.
Reckoning that he needed maturer, more independent-minded men than usual, he was able to borrow cavalry and machine-gun personnel from the New Zealand force on hand. Finding that the cars were unable to bear the weight of guns needing to be carried, Bagnold settled for 30-cwt 4 by 2 commercial trucks. Needed equipment was scrounged from Cairo shops and other sources familiar from his peacetime deserts expeditions.
Wavell soon gave the LRDG an expanded role, which was to harass the Italians by destroying convoys, attacking airfields and other "piracy" in so many widespread locations that the enemy commanders didn't know where the British were. When the Germans arrived after their assault on the Balkans in April 1941, the same treatment was waiting for them. Over the next 18 months, LRDG successes were many and their casualties light, though their were great trials to be born, such as 200-walks across the desert to safety. After the battle of El Alamein, LRDG units, now with the addition of Special Air Service forces, made their contribution to pushing Gen. Irwin Rommel out of Africa.
One member of the Zerzura Club conspicuously absent from membership ranks during the war was the Hungarian Count Ladislaus Almasy. Introducing Almasy, Mr. Kelly gives him the accolade "Knight of the Desert," and he does cut the most romantic figure in the book, if not always the most trustworthy. Descended from old Hungarian nobility with castles, even occult Templarism, in his background, Almasy grew up hunting and as a young man fell in love with the new art of flying.
In the desert together before the war, one abrasive exchange occurred between Almasy and Bagnold, who disparaged the usefulness of planes as compared to cars. Almasy nevertheless flew and flew, discovering from the air wadis that had not yet been seen from the land. He also became superb at desert driving, though with a growing reputation for risk-taking.
A passionate Italophile, Almasy was like his British colleagues prewar a player in the political minuet danced between them and the Italians and French, who had invaded Chad in 1918. But not always on the same side. The political climate, as in the British-Italian struggle over the border between Libya, created in the runup to war a climate hospitable to double-dealing. Like his fellow explorers, Almasy drew maps, and some of these found their way into the hands of the Italians and even a desert handbook used by the Afrika Corps.
Almasy began WWII in the Hungarian Intelligence Service, then adopted the uniform of a captain in the Luftwaffe. His desert war was one of mixed fortunes. A mission to pluck Gen. Aziz ali el Masri, former chief of staff to the Egyption army, and deliver him to Berlin for talks with leaders there failed. Almasy led two Heinkel III aircraft deep into Egyptian territory, only to find that Masri already was dead from a plane crash the previous month.
An attempt to spirit two agents into Cairo failed when the German plane carrying them crashed, breaking the arm of Almasy's superior, Maj. Nikolaus Ritter. Almasy's Operation Salam which followed was a dramatic achievement. He drove two more agents Johann Eppler and Heinrich Sandstette 1,400 miles to the edge of Cairo and got back to base safely, all under the eyes of the LRDG and other British who knew he was out there.
Almasy was by this time making the enemy nervous. But his agents turned out to be night club habitues, their controllers had given them British currency which was illegal in Egypt at the time, and they had trouble with their radio equipment and so were unable to report back to their base. The rest of Almasy's desert operations, mimicking the LRDG's, never amounted to much. (Reports of Almasy himself slipping into and out of Cairo during the war are apocrypha.)
One of Bagnold's fellow Zerzura Club members, Bill Kennedy Shaw, felt that Almasy had been given opportunities in the war but made little of them. Mr. Kelly suggests that he was unlucky, and I would add that Bagnold had many of his trusted comrades either in the LRDG or influential Middle East posts, whereas Almasy was relatively on his own. Moreover, the British held Cairo, enjoying far superior intelligence communications than those available to Almasy. George Murray, another Zerzura Club member, generously said of him, "a Nazi but a sportsman."
All the founding members of the Zerzura Club survived the war, and in 1950 there was a reunion in Cairo to show off the Desert Institute, of which Almasy had been made director. He died the next year. Bagnold lived until age 94, his later work on the physics of blown sand and movement of dunes valuable to the U.S. National Air and Space Agency in their Mars probe.
Mr. Kelly lectures at King's College, London, where he specializes in the history of the Great Powers in North Africa. His book is carefully researched on the activities of all sides in the desert war, with a rich compilation of references. He additionally relied on interviews with survivors in the conflict.
Here is the true history of the hunt for the lost oasis of Zerzura, romanticized in Michael Ondaatje's novel "The English Patient" and Anthony Mingella's Oscar-winning film of the same name. Many of the characters from which Mr. Ondaatje worked for his desert scenes are here from Cambyses' army of 50,000 lost in the desert without trace around 525 B.C. to Herodotus, commenting on the harsh desert conditions, to Sir Robert Clayton-East-Clayton's wife Lady Dorothy ("Peter"), who unlike the actress Kristin Scott Thomas in the movie does not fall in love with Almasy but, rather, finds him distasteful on account of his homosexuality.
Episodes from novel and film will come to mind. While Zerzura was never found by Bagnold or Almasy, the Wadi Sura with its Cave of Swimmers and rock paintings seems almost close enough. In life Almasy sketched the rock paintings, not Peter. Nor did she die there, but did perish in an air crash at Brooklands, England. Mr. Kelly's book will be of keen pleasure to readers interested in the war in North Africa, and compliment the past reading and viewing of those who enjoyed "The English Patient."
Book Description
The date is January 11, 1911. A young German paleontologist, accompanied only by a guide, a cook, four camels, and a couple of camel drivers, reaches the lip of the vast Bahariya Depression after a long trek across the bleak plateau of the western desert of Egypt. The scientist, Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach, hopes to find fossil evidence of early mammals. In this, he will be disappointed, for the rocks here will prove to be much older than he thinks. They are nearly a hundred million years old. Stromer is about to learn that he has walked into the age of the dinosaurs.
At the bottom of the Bahariya Depression, Stromer will find the remains of four immense and entirely new dinosaurs, along with dozens of other unique specimens. But there will be reversals—shipments delayed for years by war, fossils shattered in transit, stunning personal and professional setbacks. Then, in a single cataclysmic night, all of his work will be destroyed and Ernst Stromer will slip into history and be forgotten.
The date is January 11, 2000—eighty-nine years to the day after Stromer descended into Bahariya. Another young paleontologist, Ameri-can graduate student Josh Smith, has brought a team of fellow scientists to Egypt to find Stromer’s dinosaur graveyard and resurrect the German pioneer’s legacy. After weeks of digging, often under appalling conditions, they fail utterly at rediscovering any of Stromer’s dinosaur species.
Then, just when they are about to declare defeat, Smith’s team discovers a dinosaur of such staggering immensity that it will stun the world of paleontology and make headlines around the globe.
Masterfully weaving together history, science, and human drama, The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt is the gripping account of not one but two of the twentieth century’s great expeditions of discovery.
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The date is January 11, 1911. A young German paleontologist, accompanied only by a guide, a cook, four camels, and a couple of camel drivers, reaches the lip of the vast Bahariya Depression after a long trek across the bleak plateau of the western desert of Egypt. The scientist, Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach, hopes to find fossil evidence of early mammals. In this, he will be disappointed, for the rocks here will prove to be much older than he thinks. They are nearly a hundred million years old. Stromer is about to learn that he has walked into the age of the dinosaurs.
At the bottom of the Bahariya Depression, Stromer will find the remains of four immense and entirely new dinosaurs, along with dozens of other unique specimens. But there will be reversals -- shipments delayed for years by war, fossils shattered in transit, stunning personal and professional setbacks. Then, in a single cataclysmic night, all of his work will be destroyed and Ernst Stromer will slip into history and be forgotten.
The date is January 11, 2000 -- eighty-nine years to the day after Stromer descended into Bahariya. Another young paleontologist, American graduate student Josh Smith, has brought a team of fellow scientists to Egypt to find Stromer's dinosaur graveyard and resurrect the German pioneer's legacy. After weeks of digging, often under appalling conditions, they fail utterly at rediscovering any of Stromer's dinosaur species.
Then, just when they are about to declare defeat, Smith's team discovers a dinosaur of such staggering immensity that it will stun the world of paleontology and make headlines around the globe.
Masterfully weaving together history, science, and human drama, The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt is the gripping account of not one but two of the twentieth century's great expeditions of discovery.
Customer Reviews:
Too little and too long.......2005-06-04
The information in this book would have made an interesting article in a journal. It was spread perilously thin to cover 248 pages. There was no value at all to the subject of this took to dwell at length on the bombing of Munich in WWII, on the biography of the British pilot leading the raid, or, for Petes sake, a description of Bomber Harris, the British Air Marshall, or the fate of the family of the original German paleontologist. All of this was simply filler, as were for the Nth time, the narrative description of geologic ages, eons and periods. One diagram suffices in most books. There is no need to harp on how uncomfortable the desert can be. Where else will you find fossils exposed and eroded to view? All of this has been told many times before. There is not much heroic in a crew of young scientists flying to Cairo, and driving in Toyotas on a paved road to a city to stay in a motel with lights, heat and running water. This is hardship? It was mentioned that they had obtained a movie or video contract to defray expenses. It would also seem they had a contract for a book. It is thin and watery stuff. Save your money.
a very nice journey into field paleontology.......2003-05-23
This book is absolutely great reading. What it makes the book very interesting is the dual story. There is always a very good alternation of passages which describe Ernst Stromers expedition in 1912-14 to the Baharia Oasis (Egypt) on the one hand and the recent expedition of Josh Smith on the other hand.
Apart from this it is told a piece of paleontology which has been nearly "forgotten" although Baharia has been the origin of very unique predatory dinosaur species. In the years of 1912-14 Stromer excavated bones of three big theropods: Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and Bahariyasaurus. As a continuation of this story which has been sleeping for so many years we get to know how Josh Smiths team has solved the riddle Stromer left: the discovery of a huge plant-eating new dinosaur species: Paralititan. For everybody who is interested in an entertaining story on straight field paleontology I can recommend this book.
The book additionally contains 2 very fine passages with b/w photos. The first one shows photos and the well known monographs from Stromer while the second one shows impressions from Josh Smiths expedition. The second passage also contains two very fine life restorations and skeletal reconstructions of Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus as well as of the new discovered Paralititan.
Twice-Lost Dinosaurs.......2003-01-09
"The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt" is the fascinating account of the rediscovery of the work of a German paleontologist in Egypt. Just prior to First World War, Ernst Stromer, a Bavarian aristocrat, made a remarkable discovery in a particularly inhospitable region of Egypt: the fossil remains of three different huge carnivorous dinosaurs. Painstakingly reassembled in Munich, they were destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in 1944. In 2000, a group of young American scientists returned to the area where Stromer had worked, unvisited by paleontologists in the intervening nine decades, and there discovered bones of what is believed to be the second-largest dinosaur ever, an 80 ton plant-eating behemoth.
The book juxtaposes these two stories in an entertaining and informative way. Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach of Nuremberg arrived in Egypt and headed off to his dig with four boxes of water, a handful of camels, a Bohemian assistant who was not feeling very well but knew about collecting bones, an Egyptian in charge of the camels and their drivers and a cook. Stromer was looking for evidence of early mammals but instead stumbled onto an unknown and important dinosaur graveyard. He was correct and precise and meticulous and quite brilliant. With his little band he made amazing discoveries but the coming war overshadowed everything. The Bohemian assistant died and the cases of fossils, damaged by inept handling, did not reach the now-impoverished Stromer until 1922. For the next twelve years he wrote up wonderful monographs on his Egyptian dinosaurs. One of them, Spinosaurus, looked like a giant T-Rex with a sail on its back. But only the monographs survived the bombing raid. Stromer was a respected man of science but did not suffer fools. It appears that his opposition to the Nazi regime came with a heavy price as two of his three sons died in the war, and the third son was a Russian POW for six years. He himself was twice threatened with deportation to a concentration camp for urging the removal of the natural history collection in Munich to a safer location. After his death in 1952, he and the wonderful dinosaurs seem to have been forgotten.
The time, but not the scene, switches and we enjoy reading about the antics of a group of enthusiastic young Americans, paleontologists and geologists, who decided to mount an expedition to the same Bahariya Depression where Stromer went. But this is a an expedition in a different century, and the group travelled with Land Rovers and GPS equipment and a film crew and actually stayed in a rustic hotel near the dig rather than in a ready-to-blow-away tent that served for Stromer. But besides their somewhat better equipment-it still seems to come down to picks and shovels and hard physical labour-the group brought an interdisciplinary approach and the advantages of nine decades of additional science and understanding. Part of the interest in the newer story is the importance that the group places in trying to understand what kind of environment the dinosaurs of the time faced.
The book conveys the excitement of an expedition very well. First there is the hassle of fund-raising and then the irritation of all the paperwork and the physical discomforts and the fruitless searching. But then there are breakthroughs, sometimes lucky, and then there is the ultimate detective work of adding up all the little shards and scraps and a 5 foot long humerus and some rock profiles and coming up with an answer to what this all means.
One of the great riddles posed by Stromer's finds was how three large types of carnivores could co-exist. This discovery of the huge herbivore answered this question nicely. But the book also makes the important point that very little is really known about dinosaurs since the fossil record is so incomplete. I was astonished to learn that fewer than 500 species of dinosaur have been definitively identified, amazingly few for the millions of years they existed on earth. As a comparison, there are about 330 known species of in the parrot family alone!
The authors do not mention that fact that the number of field paleontologists is minute and that the startling discoveries of the last decades have been the result of dedicated work by only a handful of people around the world. "The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt" tells an exciting story while recognizing the accomplishments of the past and would be a fine addition to the library of any student considering a career in this field.
To digress, this is not a book for specialists but that is not to condemn it in any way. "Popular science" is a genre that is often sniffed at but there is a huge demand to be filled. At a time when 18 percent of Americans 18-24 years of age cannot even identify where the United States is on a map, anything that arouses intellectual curiosity should be welcomed. That this book is simply-written and provides a summary of the history of paleontolgy is a good thing; that it was filmed and turned into a television documentary even better.
It is to the credit of the team of Americans that they have recognized the achievements of their predecessor in the desert in a particularly apt way. The prepared bones of the giant herbivore will return to Egypt, where they will be displayed with the creature's newly-assigned name: Paralititan stromeri.
Good popular science for a teenager.......2002-12-30
This book does a very good job of telling the story of a very minor piece of scientific research, the discovery of yet another species of large dinosaur (of which there are many) and the geological context in which it may have lived. Thus, as science, it is small potatoes. It does, however, cast the tale in the midst of a good review of elementary geology and paleontology, and consequently, should be accessible even to those who the read the book starting in complete ignorance of those fields. It fails to credit the Alvarezes (a physicist and a geologist) by name for finding out what happened to the dinosaurs, but that may only be the paleonotologist's resentment at having their best puzzle stolen from them by a physicist who didn't dug up so much as a single fossilized bone.
Overall, this is a book for fifteen year olds, but it is a good one.
A Tale of Two Expeditions.......2002-12-10
If you pick up a copy of _The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt_ (Random House), you will find, quite appropriately, that it bears a photograph of a desert setting on which a skeletal outline of a dinosaur is superimposed. But if you open it up and start reading, there seems as if there is something wrong: "Wing Commander G. Leonard Cheshire arrived at the Royal Air Force's aerodrome at Woodhall Spa on the morning of April 24, 1944 ..." It is a surprising start to an amazing story, written by William Nothdurft, with a co-author credit to Josh Smith, the leader of the most recent expedition to find the Egyptian dinosaurs. That expedition repeated the hunt in the area in 1911 by Ernst Stromer, a German physician who had caught the paleontology bug. Throughout the book, Stromer's story is interwoven with Smith's, in a narrative that is more exciting than that about fossil hunting has any right to be.
Stromer's makeshift expedition was heroic. He traveled to the Bahariya Oasis in the Saharan desert, specifically looking for fossils of ancient mammals, and was unprepared to send back the monstrous bone specimens he found. He got back to Munich, but it was only after years of delay (the Great War didn't help) that he got all his specimens. Eventually, as a result of British bombing raids in 1944, and because no one would heed his warnings that his fossils needed special protection, the specimens were lost when their museum was bombed. No paleontologists returned to the uninviting Bahariya for decades, until Josh Smith, a graduate student, got the idea of going. The book has an excellent account of the trip, the politicking for funds, the dangers of the field, and the excitement of making a scientific difference.
Besides being a history, and a personal account, however, _The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt_ tells how paleontology has been done in the past and is done now. The bizarre roles of good luck and bad run through both Smith's and Stromer's endeavors. Smith's expedition verified Stromer's findings and made their own, including the second most massive dinosaur known, _Paralititan stromeri_ (note the tribute in the species name). It also shows the importance of the expedition to paleontology overall. Smith and his fellow explorers were able to answer Stromer's riddle of how the huge meat-eating dinosaurs of the area found anything to eat; Stromer described mostly predators. There were discoveries, too, about the ecosystem that is now desert; the geologists on the team (one of them Smith's wife) discovered that the best explanation for the varieties of dinosaur they found in the desert is that millions of years ago, it was not desert at all, but a coastal mangrove swamp. There are plenty of surprises here, with an attractive cast of eager young paleontologists who take on the roles of fools rushing in where experts fear to tread.
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The Lost Oasis
Patrick Roscoe
Manufacturer: McClelland & Stewart
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Roscoe, Patrick
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ASIN: 0771075790
Release Date: 1995-04-29 |
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Lost Oasis
Doug Hiser
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
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ASIN: 1588987523
Release Date: 2002-07-25 |
Product Description
Lost Oasis is a poetry collection different than any other. There is pure bare emotion filled with erotic and sensitive sweetness within the Lost Oasis of the unique worlds of Doug Hiser. Lost Oasis is poetry storytelling and follows in the footsteps of Doug Hiser's Secret Grotto short story collection. The reader is always visually aware of his surroundings in a world of imagination and realistic detail in the truth of the majestic mystery and desperate love of Lost Oasis.
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The Lost Oasis #6
Manufacturer: Bantam Books
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000I4RKZ6 |
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Man of the Flying Trapeze: The Life and Times of Wc Fields
Simon Louvish
Manufacturer: Book Sales
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0762852607 |
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- All Honest Men: A Biographical Novel
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- Along the Border Lies
- Another Book About Another Broken Heart
- At the Owl Woman Saloon: Stories
- Baldur's Gate: A Novelization
- Before I Forget
- Big Gold Dream
- Brand New Memory
- Bruna and Her Sisters in the Sleeping City
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