Perspectives in mycological research: Prof. G.P. Agarwal festschrift volume (International bioscience series)

Book Description

Europe's last great wilderness is home to stunning lochs, silent glens, crashing seas, and unbelievable views. Detailed here are the region’s must-see sights, activities including fire festivals and whale watching, and the best places to dine and stay, from B&Bs to baronial castles.

Footprint Scotland Highlands & Islands Handbook : The Travel Guide

Average customer rating:

Loving Scotland!

Footprint Scotland Highlands & Islands Handbook : The Travel Guide
Alan Murphy
Manufacturer: Footprint Handbooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

Footprint Handbooks | Guidebook Series | Travel | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1900949946

Book Description

The Highlands, the northern most area of the Scottish mainland, between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, is a majestically beautiful area. This Footprint handbook highlights this beauty and history with colorful photography and unique full-color maps for the utmost in travel planning. Activities included in this guide range from walking tours to "Munro-bagging" and also include horse riding, cycling, fishing, and golf. Besides comprehensive coverage of all the sights and extensive listings of accommodations, the guide divulges detailed information on prehistoric monuments and the famous Scotch whisky distilleries. All the regions of Scotland are covered, including the islands in the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys and Shetlands, plus the Argyll and Highlands area.

Customer Reviews:

Loving Scotland!.......2002-06-10

Having just returned from my 2nd trip to Scotland, and this time touring the Highlands, this book was by far the most complete and comprehensive of any guide book I used. It gave phone numbers, things not to miss, and even included info on "things to do on Skye when it rains" (which it did almost daily). I appreciated the maps and the little historical notes they wrote. I would recommend this book to anyone going to The Highlands for their first - or tenth - time. The only other thing you will need is an English - Gaelic dictionary.

Average customer rating:

Walks Around Aviemore, Footprint Map

Manufacturer: Footprint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Map

Walking | Hiking & Camping | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1871149738

Customer Reviews:

Tadodaho Messenger.......2007-09-10

This book is a MUST read for everybody. It was very well written by Steve Wall, a retired National Geography editor who spent many years with Leon Shenandoah, Chief Tadodaho of Iroquois Nation. Leon Shenandoah, Chief Tadodaho is from Onondaga Tribe, which is known as the central firekeeper of Six Nation, that of Iroquois Confederacy. The book does not only shed some lights into Iroquois and Native America culture but more importantly it shed so much insight into life and what it means to be the ultimate human being that we all are. In 2006 I had a vision while I was asleep when a Native American gentleman appeared in front of me, saying nothing but appeared to know who I was. I did not know who he was or what he was trying to tell me until approximately one year later when I ran into this book, by mere accident. When I saw a picture of him in the book I broke down and felt the presence of a powerful spirit, realizing that it was the very same man that came to me in my vision. Since then I've become a Tadodaho Messenger, in which I've purchased numerous copies of the book and distributed them to seekers that I run paths with. The book contains powerful message and hope for all human beings. Chief Tadodaho teaches us to be the firekeepers that we all are so that we're able to instill small fires in each human beings and give them hope so that they'll begin to do good for other human beings. Thus, it created the birth of Firekeepers Association, also known as www.firekeepers.com. Read this book and you'll begin to understand many great things about life. You'll also learn about your own center and why it's important to build yourself and grow from the center.

Leon Tadodaho, Chief Tadodaho passed away some time in the 1990's and was largely unheard outside of Iroquois Nation. That's because he did not bother to gain celebrity status under the spot lights. Instead he spent all of his time working with his people and helping them. Make a trip to Iroquois Nations and ask anybody there about him and you will find them weeping in great pain because they all miss him miserably. Fortunately for us, Leon Shenandoah, Chief Tadodaho did not forget us. He spent many years preparing Steve Wall with important messages with hope to have a book published so that it'll benefit everybody when and if they're willing to take a brief pause in life long enough to read his important messages. The book was published after he died but yet his spirit continue to travel as he continue to work on things that are important to the Creator. Look no further than introduction "foreword page" and you will read "When I go, I'll not be wanting to leave. So I'll have some visiting to do. Look out! I may come to see you. You know what I told you, 'Pay attention. And listen. There really is no death'."

Required reading for every human being.......2005-08-29

This book needs to be required reading for every human being on this earth. Powerful. Profound. Deeply spiritual and life changing. What an amazing man. It's too bad our current political leaders are so arrogant, selfish and stubborn. They could learn a few lessons about true, honest, unselfish, genuine leadership from this man, his life and his lessons. There truly is strength in gentleness.

To Become a Human Being: The Message of Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah.......2005-08-12

This is a wonderful message from the spiritual leader of the Iroquois people, recently deceased. A gentle man, whose simple words ring with power. Leon's message is that kindness is strength. Steve Wall's interviews with Chief Shenandoah are a treasure, gifted to a world sorely in need of his gentle humor, great wisdom, and humility.

North American Indian Tribal Chiefs (First Book)

Average customer rating:

North American Indian Tribal Chiefs (First Book)
Karen Liptak
Manufacturer: Franklin Watts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0531156435

Mending the sacred hoop of the Lakota Nation: The Chief Big Foot Memorial Rides [Si Tanka Wokiksuye Okolakiciye] : a teaching case study in tribal management ... on American Indian Economic Development)

Average customer rating:

Mending the sacred hoop of the Lakota Nation: The Chief Big Foot Memorial Rides [Si Tanka Wokiksuye Okolakiciye] : a teaching case study in tribal management ... on American Indian Economic Development)
Jonathan Taylor
Manufacturer: Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union claiming ownership some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires. These self-styled oligarchs were accused of using guile, intimidation, and occasionally violence to reap these rewards. This revelatory work examines the structure of the Russian economy and considers why it collapsed in 1998 and why it began its recovery in 1999. It also provides a close examination of the Russian oil industry and the oligarchs who control it and who have now decided to go "legitimate".

Customer Reviews:

Study of the theft of a whole country.......2004-11-22

The author gives us a good picture of the club of greedy criminals who have hijacked an entire country and wrecked it.

Their real money-spinner was grabbing pieces of Russia's immensely rich natural resources under the Loans for Shares [...]. For a fraction of their market value, the capitalists offered to look after the shares that the government put up as collateral for the loans, `managing' the state's stake in the energy companies in exchange for loans to the deficit-ridden state. This allowed them to claim that the nation's assets were not being sold off. In these corrupt insider deals, the Yeltsin government let the new capitalists take the companies from their directors, buying Yeltsin their support against the communists. The government could not repay the loans. The capitalists then sold the shares to themselves very cheaply, as repayment for the loans, through offshore companies.

The government used companies' book values as fixed in January 1992, before the great inflation, as the basis for the voucher auctions. Yeltsin's Deputy Prime Minister, Yegor Gaidar, freed prices in January 1992, causing 2500% inflation, wiping out workers' life savings, 70 million accounts in the state-owned Sberbank alone.

In November-December 1995, the government auctioned 12 of Russia's biggest companies. A tiny handful of banks ran the auctions, disqualified their rivals, excluded foreigners, bid in the auctions and won the bids. The capitalists admitted that they paid 40 times less than the enterprises were worth. In a closed auction run by his own bank, Uneksimbank, Vladimir Potanin (the deputy prime minister in charge of finance) bought, for just $170.1 million, Norilsk Nickel, the world's biggest producer of nickel and platinum, whose profits that year were $1.2 billion. The bank disqualified a rival bid of $350 million on a technicality. Potanin also bought oil companies at non-competitive prices and then sold the products at below market prices to trading companies he owned. He sold Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly, for $228 million, a thousandth of its value. Potanin sold 51% of the Sidanco oil company, for which he loaned the government $130 million. Then he bought the company for $130 million in the auction: in 1997, BP paid $571 million for just a 10% stake. Not surprisingly, Potanin's bank was the biggest winner from the Loans for Shares [...].

Capitalists created parasitic subsidiaries, whose profits they divided amongst themselves, not with the shareholders. They exploited arbitrage opportunities between low Russian prices and high world market prices, particularly in gas, oil, gold, platinum and other precious metals. They profited from the Central Bank's negative real interest rates, and speculated in currencies, mainly against the rouble. The capitalists' government took barely any taxes: in 1995-96, Gazprom paid $3.5 million tax on $2 billion earnings.

Anatoly Chubais, head of the State Privatization Committee, said of Russia's capitalists, "They steal and steal and steal. They are stealing absolutely everything and it is impossible to stop them." By 1999, 38% of Russia's people existed below the poverty line. 90% of the people endured worsening conditions, while the handful of arrogant capitalists made colossal profits by theft and corruption. If you want a picture of 'free enterprise' in action, here it is!

How The Russian Mafia Destroyed Russia.......2004-04-04

ÿI first became acquainted with this work through an NPR interview. The author, Marshall Goldman, was suddenly asked by the reviewer what he thought about top Mafia thug Mikhail Khodorkovsky giving a million dollars to the Library of Congress (as a means of legitimizing himself). Naturally, as I work at the Library of Congress, I perked up, paid attention, and then bought the book. Wow.

Khodorkovsky (currently in jail) started out as a good little communist, belonging to the Komsomol, and going to college. Johnny on the spot, he parlayed a small bank charter for
Menatep to become Russia's richest man. Unfortunately, Menatep was involved in the Bank of New York money laundering scheme, bilking the US out of billions. In 1994, the Federal Reserve ordered the CIA to investigate Russian banks, a study which concluded most Russian banks are Mafia controlled. Although the study is still classified, Menatep was the only bank publicly noted for being Mafia controlled (page148). Knodorkovsky started Yukos Oil, which was a swindle. Using this money, Khodorkovsky, with Henry Kissinger as a member of his board, gave one million dollars to the Library of Congress to start the Open Russia Foundation (page 149).

Another Library of Congress rent-a-thug was Vladimir Gusinsky. Gusinsky predated Khodorkovsky--probably because he's currently on the lam--and had helped fund the Librarian of Congress' Russia documentary film. Gusinsky had actually attended the University of Virginia to study financial management. He named his business empire MOST (a play on the word bridge)after the sign on ATM machines. Goldman also provides us with the "how" of how these two Mafia "oligarchs" could seem presentable given their backgrounds. Somebody got them the services of APCO, which is an offshoot of Arnold and Porter, a top DC law firm full of congressmen and other movers and shakers (page 129). The rest is history, as they say.

I also just have to mention one of the Russian jokes that Goldman repeats. Due to broad government theft this one circulated: A man parked under Yeltsin's office and walked away. A guard rushed up and said "You can't park under Yeltsin's office." "It's okay, the man replied, "I locked the car."

Goldman gives us the backgrounds and histories of all the top "oligarchs" and an explanation any layman can understand regarding just how Russia became so corrupted. This book, then, is not just for Library of Congress employees looking to see who the latest donors to our institution are.

Our Librarian of Congress, James Billington, is a former Sovietologist and "Russian scholar," so I suppose he knows what he is doing. Here is what Goldman thinks, though, "The more involved Russian businessmen become with the West, the more likely it is that they will come to adopt Western business practices, presumably good ones. But there is no guarantee. Given how deeply ingrained some of the less desirable practices are among Russian administrators (past and present) it is only to be expected that some of the more nefarious behaviour we have encountered inside Russia will also surface outside (page 118)."

An Absolute Must Read.......2004-03-31

I was first drawn to this book after hearing the author interviewed. He was talking about his book when he was interrupted and the interviewer asked Marshall Goldman about Russian Mafia PR campaign on US government officials.(...)In the book there is a brief mention of this fact on page 149, "To show how public-spirited YUKOS [the Mafia-run oil giant] had become, it donated $1 million to the U.S. Library of Congress and set up an Open Russia Foundation with, among others, Henry Kissinger as a member of the board of trustees." It was James Billington, the current Librarian of Congress and former "Sovietologist" professor who brought them all together. Wow.

This book is not just about the Mafia figure, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who ownes YUKOS. What sets Goldman's book apart from others I have read, such as "Comrade Criminal," is the description of what went wrong in Russia when the Soviet Union fell. Dr. Goldman paints a rather bleak picture. Goldman explains the how and why of the vouchers scam and how out of Russia, a certain overnight class of incredibly rich "oligarchs" came on the scene. Goldman shows how these billionaires never developed an economy, at one point contrasting how in Poland the problems that occured in Russia never arose.

If you want to lose sleep you need to read this book as the inroads of Russian Mafia-controlled in America should cause real alarm. As cited on page 118, "The Russian were supposed to adopt out ways, not bring their ways to the United States." Congress is well aware of all this, as on page 128 Goldman relates how the CIA reported that half of Russia's banks were Mafia controlled. The only bank to be so named publicly is MENATEP (page 148). The man the Librarian of Congress brought to the Library of Congress was not just the founder of MENATEP, but also involved in the Bank of New York money laundering.

The two chapters on the oligarchs (pages 98-156)make for heavy reading, especially since two of the oligarchs are (now were) directly involved with the Library of Congress, Vladimir Gussinsky (who fled Russia) and Khodorkovsky (arrested in his jet and currently in jail in Russia). Goldman really gives you the average Russian viewpoint of these oligarchs and the Putin reactions. That the oligarchs are intertwined with the KGB and the fact that the Russian government is predominated by KGB types is described by Goldman. His repeating of jokes really gives the feel, like the one about the subway rider who asks the man standing on his foot if he is from Petersburg (Mafia central) or the KGB. When the man says neither, he is then asked "then why are you standing on my foot?" The other great joke describes the outright theft of the country through the story of the man who parks his car under the window of Yeltsin's office. You can't park under Yeltsin's office the guard says, which the man responds "It's okay, I locked my car."

It is all this together than makes this book a classic.(...)

Best book on the topic.......2003-07-19

I have read many books on the transfer of the USSR state economy to private hands and this is, by far, the best and clearest on the topic. If one has to read just one account, this is it.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Independent Review, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 2635 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Privatization and piratization in post-communist Russia.(Critical essay)
Author: Yuri Maltsev
Publication: Independent Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Page: 425(6)

Article Type: Critical essay

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Customer Reviews:

Very informative !.......2001-02-09

A very informative book for Bedlington Terrier fanciers. The book contents include: Characteristics of the Bedlington Terrier, the history of the breed, famous sires and dams, The Bedlington Terrier Club of America, the breed standard, the illustrated standard, purchasing your Bedlington Terrier, breeding, health, grooming, the Bedlington in the show ring, National Specialty winners 1982 - 1998, Gallery of Specialty Winners, and working with a Bedlington Terrier.

Average customer rating:

Pictures are OK
Mostly Fluff and Not Enough Stuff

Bedlington Terriers
Elinore W. Young
Manufacturer: TFH Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Veterinary Medicine | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Animal Husbandry | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0866225935

Customer Reviews:

Pictures are OK.......2002-11-09

The saving grace of this publication is the pictures of Bedlington Terriers in the first half of the book. The last half uses generic dog pictures and cartoons! Otherwise, it is a generic dog book with very basic information.

Save your money on this one, and invest in "The Official Book of the Bedlington Terrier" by Muriel Lee. It's a keeper, and all illustrations are of Bedlingtons!

Mostly Fluff and Not Enough Stuff.......2001-11-15

In a book containing 192 pages only 64 pages are about the Bedlington Terrier. The rest of the book is strictly generic as to the care of dogs in general.

There were a lot of pretty colored pictures of Bedlingtons and not much information. There was no information concerning Copper Toxicosis in Bedlingtons or any other genetic problems. No mention of DNA testing or liver biopsies. Nothing said about their great disposition and that they love kids.

Average customer rating:
Astro Blue: A Member of Our Family
Aaron E. Freeman
Manufacturer: Argos Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

General | Dogs | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | Classics | Comic | Contemporary | Literary
ASIN: 0915509008

Average customer rating:

Poor in information,not useful if you already have the breed

Bedlington Terrier (Comprehensive Owner's Guide)
Muriel P. Lee
Manufacturer: Kennel Club Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Dogs | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Official Book of the Bedlington Terrier

ASIN: 1593782969

Customer Reviews:

Poor in information,not useful if you already have the breed.......2007-02-06

Add a few pages for the breed,with other common information about dogs
and you churn out books like this.No real life information about show grooming.

Average customer rating:

BEDLINGTON CHAMPs

Bedlington Terrier Champions, 1968-1999
Jan Linzy
Manufacturer: Camino E E & Book Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Plastic Comb

General | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 1558930604

Customer Reviews:

BEDLINGTON CHAMPs.......2001-03-07

I have looked over this book. it is excelent. it has many photos of different champs. including a description of the animal and his/her name. along with sires and dames. I would recomend this book to readers, and lovers of the breed.

Average customer rating:

Bedlington Terrier Champions, 2000-2005
Jan Linzy , and Sharae Pata
Manufacturer: Camino E E & Book Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Plastic Comb

General | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 1558931961

How to Raise and Train a Bedlington Terrier

Average customer rating:

Great book

How to Raise and Train a Bedlington Terrier
Young Ew
Manufacturer: TFH Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0876662459

Customer Reviews:

Great book.......2000-04-09

Offers much insight into this rare breed. A must have for any Bedlington enthusiast.

Average customer rating:

Totally Awesome! It ROCKS!

The soul of the Silver Dog

Manufacturer: Bullseye Book
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0679876863

Product Description

story of companionship between 14 year old girl and her blind Bedlington terrier as they each overcome obstacles of life.

Customer Reviews:

Totally Awesome! It ROCKS!.......2005-04-25

I love this book! It touches my heart the way the girl (sorry I can't remember her name right now) takes Sterling home and trains him. It shows that even if someone (the dog in this book) has a disability they can still accomplish great things. That even if you are not perfect to the eyes of the world, you can be perfect to the eyes of those who love you.

Electric dog clipper and small animal grooming instructions

Average customer rating:

Electric dog clipper and small animal grooming instructions
Catherine Goldstein
Manufacturer: Oster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Average customer rating:

Bedlington Terrier

Manufacturer: INTERPET
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H9ACZM

Book Description

In 1930 Dumezil wrote an article in which he defended the Indo-European character of the Indian varnas. In 1986 he was completing his final 25 Esquisses, research proposals the aim of which was to allow his model of the `ideologie tripartie' of Indo-European traditions to be applied to his `disciples'. According to this model Indo-European traditions were typified by a threefold division into functions of society, the world of the gods, and the heroic traditions. These were the functions of sovereignty, power and `fertility'. This theoretical model was elaborated by Dumezil in a large number of books and articles. Between 1930 and 1986 he broadened enormously the amount of data on which his model was based. To do so he had regularly to adapt and reformulate his model. This was not without consequences for the material which he had interpreted earlier on. In this study a detailed description is given of this process of reformulation and reinterpretation and the conclusion is that the totality of the various models does not, despite its aesthetic attraction, satisfy the criteria which should be set for scientific models.

Decayed Gods: Origin and Development of Georges Dumezil's 'Ideologie Tripartie'

Average customer rating:

Decayed Gods: Origin and Development of Georges Dumezil's 'Ideologie Tripartie'
Wouter W. Belier
Manufacturer: Brill Academic Publishers, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUU71U

Average customer rating:

The story of a marriage

Lovely but oh, so bittersweet

A Great Love

Vomit And Love

One of the Better Auto-/Bios in a Long, Long Time

The Two of Us: My Life with John Thaw
Sheila Hancock
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
Similar Items:

Judi Dench Scenes from My Life

Kavanagh QC, Set 1

Kavanagh QC: True Commitment

Kavanagh QC: A Sense of Loss

Kavanagh Q.C. - Diplomatic Baggage

ASIN: B0009XC66O

Book Description

Sheila Hancock's moving memoir of her life with husband John Thaw, star of the Inspector Morse series.
In this unique double biography, Sheila Hancock chronicles her life and the life of her husband John Thaw, one of the finest actors of his generation, who was beloved as Inspector Morse in the long-running TV series and who later starred later in life in A Year in Provence. The Two of Us is an utterly compelling portrait of their lives-personal and professional, together and apart-against the rich backdrop of the film and theater worlds of the late twentieth century.
When John Thaw arrived at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on scholarship, he felt like an outsider. In fact, his timing was perfect: it was the sixties and the arena of television was just opening up. Fame came quickly, but it was John's role as Morse that made him an icon around the world. In 1974 John married Sheila Hancock, with whom he shared a working-class background and a RADA education. Sheila was already a television star herself and went on to become the first female artistic director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Theirs was a sometimes turbulent, always passionate relationship, and Sheila describes their lives together, weathering overwork and the pressures of celebrity, drink and cancer, with honesty and piercing intelligence.
The Two of Us is a remarkable book-a biography of a born actor and a tender, often heartbreaking memoir of a marriage. Full of insight and vivid memories, it evokes two lives lived to the utmost.

Customer Reviews:

The story of a marriage.......2007-10-11

I started this book because I have fond memories of John Thaw zooming round London in 'The Sweeney' and I dream of one day having a red Jaguar like the one he drove in 'Inspector Morse'. However, there was another side of John Thaw I knew nothing about, a man who struggled with depression and alcoholism....

Sheila Hancock, his wife, tells this beautiful warts and all love story as a tribute to the whole man. We read about the hell he put himself and those he loved through when he was drinking and about his recovering from alcoholism and how this rejuvenated his relationships.

Tragically, John Thaw died of cancer in 2002. The book is a tribute to the man as an actor and (and this was more important to me) a heartfelt love letter telling of the trials, tribulations and eventual triumph of a marriage which, while it might have been made in heaven, put both Mr Thaw and Ms Hancock through more than their share of hell.

Lovely but oh, so bittersweet.......2007-02-12

For anyone who is a devoted John Thaw fan,(he was the BEST as far as I'm concerned), this is a book that you MUST read. Not only is it a tribute to his talent but it is a love letter from the love of his life. I brushed away many a tear while reading this wonderful but heartbreaking book.
Not only is this an intelligently written book by his wife, an accomplished actress herself, but she shares many photos of John's personal and professional life.
It was wonderful.

A Great Love.......2006-12-16

I bought this book because I and my wife so admired John Thaw the actor,
Morse, Cavanagh, Mr. Tom, A Year in Province etc. This not your typical
biography of a great actor it's much more. This is a moving story of a
women's deep love of a very flawed and troubled man. Her fears of losing him and her eventual loss of him hits home to anyone who has lost someone
that was the love of their life. She has written a deeply personel story,
and given words to thoughts we all have at the loss of one we so loved.
This book touched me deeply, it's what we all will face eventually as
the one who is dying or the one left behind. There is no gloss here
She portrays their life as it was and who they were. John Thaw was a
wonderful actor, but a greater man for beating his demons and over
comming all the blocks to happiness in his life.He could not have done it without her love and patience. He was a "Lucky Man",read it and weep.

Vomit And Love.......2005-10-19

An entertaining tell-all by Sheila Hancock, an actress of whom I had never heard before picking up this book on a whim. As it happens I like the title.

She has many great stories about growing up in some shabby corners of England, and becoming an actress of some repute, as well as a sex symbol on English TV. It sounds as though she's had some limited success in movies, but mostly, I suppose, if you don't watch a lot of British TV from the 70s and 80s, you might not have heard of her.

I never heard of her husband either, but he was also a British TV star who played a cop in two long running series, one based on the Inspector Morse novels by Colin Dexter. His name was John Thaw and most of Hancock's book centers on him, her feelings for him, the complicated romantic relationships of the pair, and mostly about the alcoholism that, left unchecked, turned him into a human monster. Hancock relates some stories about Thaw's working class background that indicate he had vast reservoirs of resentment that fueled his masterful stage appearances. But he wasn't an easy husband, nor a good father; not until the end when, under the light of a guiding star called Udi Eichler, he learned to stop drinking and to sober up. Even though I never heard of any of the characters, I found myself intensely interested in Sheila Hancock's story. I wanted her to be happy, and I wanted John to come to his senses and stop throwing away the good things he had. And yes, all these things came to pass. Alas! Just when he was getting it together (personally speaking), he was diagnosed with late-stage cancer, and so he had only a short time to enjoy this late-blooming springtime of sobriety.

She uses her own diaries and those of her late husband, to good effect. What could be more wrenching than the dream journal of alcoholic John? "Came upstairs. Sheila came out of study. Looks me up and down. I look down. See there is vomit over my jacket and trousers." She might have been a termagant to the poor guy, but believe me, she had every right to be. In some ways she was an enabler, but as we see, she has a heart as big as Blackpool, and a more loveable show biz memoir you won't read for eons. There are, incidentally, a plethora of anecdotes about the famous friends and acquaintances of the couple, including some priceless stories about Peter O'Toole, no acting slouch himself, a man who idolized John Thaw.

One of the Better Auto-/Bios in a Long, Long Time.......2005-10-03

I knew of Sheila Hancock's work long before the introduction of "Morse" on American television. She is a fine stage and film actress whose talent won my respect in a piece of camp called "The Anniversary!" That she is also a remarkably fine writer came as a pleasant surprise. Her presentation, side-by-side time lines as well as contemporary "diary entries" for chapter headings is a very creative technique--and, for the most part, quite successful. One does get a measure of the man that WAS John Thaw; but, I came away with a greater sense of the woman who IS Sheila Hancock. The concluding pages are truly gut-wrenching! (My only complaint: the font used for the U.S. edition is hard on the eyes!)

Average customer rating:

THE TWO OF US, MY LIFE WITH JOHN THAW
SHEILA HANCOCK
Manufacturer: BLOOMSBURY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SDC0DY

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books