Aroids: Plants of the Arum Family

Book Description

Originally published in 1988 as the first truly comprehensive review of one of the largest and most popular plant families, Aroids was enthusiastically welcomed by botanists and horticulturists alike for its attention to scientific detail and delightful writing style. Now in this completely updated second edition, we learn of discoveries made in the last decade as the family has grown from about 2500 species to nearer 3200. The latest taxonomic and nomenclatural revisions are noted in the checklist of genera, and all the original drawings are included plus twice as many color photos. A new guide to the cultivation of ornamental aroids completes this well-rounded introduction to a remarkable family.

Customer Reviews:

Aroids: Plants of the Arum Family.......2007-08-23

This is the best botanical book I have bought in years. easy to read, witty and packed with information.

A plant family that may be more ingenious than the orchids.......2005-12-20

I've long been a fan of the Orchidaceae, but I didn't know that the Aroids are possibly an even more advanced branch of the Monocotlydons. This book exposes some shocking facts. Some species routinely metabolize lipids to generate temperatures over 100 F around their inflorescence while surrounding temps are near freezing. Other species manufacture aromatic compounds rarely encountered outside of the ANIMAL kingdom. There are aroids we can eat, and others that smell so horrible they inspire nightmares. Some species' reproductive contrivances are almost too imaginative for the plant kingdom.

Deni Bown has provided an invaluable service: she's compiled nearly everything Aroid known to science into one, comprehensive yet accessible book.

A cool corner of the plant kingdom.......2005-07-28

If your tastes are a little nonstandard, you will enjoy growing the plants described in this book. I am lucky enough to live in Chapel Hill, NC. Its benign climate is ideal for growing hordes of very cool, very weird plants. Great effort!

Fascinating guide to one of the most unusual plant species.......1999-08-21

Very interesting look at one of the most unusual plant species on this planet! Brown gives us information on habitat, medicinal value, mythology concerning aroids and much more. This book is a must have for aroid enthusiasts!

Book Description

Discover the unspoilt beauty of France's most legendary regions as well as the more famous hot-spots. From the glamour of St. Tropez to the tranquil hills of Provence, this guide explores the whole area with wit, insight, and passion.

Customer Reviews:

Beautifully written, vivid description.......2006-12-31

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (12/06)

France has long been one of my favorite countries, and the south of France must be one of the most beautiful places on this planet. If you've ever had a chance to spend some time there, I am certain you will never forget the colors and the scents of that wondrous region.

Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls have written a phenomenal guidebook to this extraordinary region, filled with an incredible amount of useful information as well as some of the most sparkling travel writing that I have read in quite a while. Just listen to this:

"By 19 BC, the fountain of Nemausus could no longer slake Nîmes' thirst, and a search was on for a new source. The Romans were obsessed with the quality of their water, and when they found a crystal-clear spring called the Eure near Uzès, the fact that it was 48km away hardly posed an obstacle to antiquity's star engineers. The resulting aqueduct, built under Augustus' son-in-law Agrippa, was like a giant needle hemming the landscape, piercing tunnels through hills and looping its arches over the open spaces of the garrigues, and all measured precisely to allow a slope of .07 centimetres per metre. [...] ... the Roman engineers knuckled down, ordered a goodly supply of neatly dressed stone from the nearby quarries at Vers, and built the Pont du Gard, at 157ft the highest of all Roman aqueducts and, along with the span in Segovia, the best preserved in the world. ... No matter how many photos you've seen before, the aqueduct's three tiers of arches of golden stone without mortar make a brave and lovely sight...."

If a description like this does not whet your appetite to see the Pont du Gard, I truly do not know what could. You can nearly see the Roman engineers scratching their heads, trying to figure how to design the aqueduct; and hear them arguing about whose solution is best...

In addition to such brilliantly vivid descriptions, the guidebook offers all of the usual and necessary information for a visitor to the area, with listings for over 600 places to stay, over 450 places to eat and drink, plus lots of practical information, 60 area and city maps and more. The 26 color photographs in the first section will certainly introduce the amazing colors of the region, but you will have to visit in person to get the scents and sounds of it right. Two sections that I liked particularly well were the "Further Reading" section at the very end of the book as well as the great sections on where to taste and buy the local wine, which can be found throughout the book.

I would recommend "South of France" highly to anybody who wishes to explore the South of France in more depth. And if you are unable to go there in person, this guidebook could help transport you there by simply reading a chapter and closing your eyes.

Opinionated, well-written, and comprehensive.......2006-03-09

Cadogan Guides are in a category all by themselves. Sick of the usual blandness you encounter in almost all travel books? Pick up any Cadogan Guide and you'll be entertained even before you travel. The authors are cheeky, to be sure, but I appreciate their willingness to interject their own preferences and opinions, and save me the trouble of visiting a ho-hum attraction. Rather than providing endless pages of glossy photos and reviews that rate most everything as just as good as everything else, Cadogan Guides are packed with dense information and helpful maps. Save the glossy photos for us to take, thank you, and give us the information, please.

Lancaster District, South Carolina 1850 census

Average customer rating:

Lancaster District, South Carolina 1850 census
Frances Reeves Jeffcoat
Manufacturer: F.R. Jeffcoat
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Genealogy | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006YGUEK

Book Description

Anarcho-Communist, Anarcho-Syndicalist, Anti-Militarist, but always involved in social struggles, Louis Lecoin's life presents the map of a journey through the French Anarchist movement for more than half a century - from the turn of the century right up till the early 1970s...

Amazon.com

The author of the best-selling Wiseguy gives us this true and brilliantly-told story of love, marriage, adultery, murder, revenge, and how it led to the Mafia's finally losing its stranglehold on the Las Vegas casinos.

Book Description

With the intensity of a Jacobean tragedy, Casino unfolds its tale of a love triangle between a gambler, his wife, and his henchman amid the glittering, festering Babylon of Las Vegas. The film makes daring use of voice-over and rapidly shifting points of view and time frame, leaving conventional film language far behind.

Customer Reviews:

Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas.......2007-06-06

Book came in the time frame and in the condition specified.

Absolutely Fascinating .......2007-03-08

It has been a long time since I fell on such a good book. Interesting characters intertwine in a decisive decade for Vegas. The story is based on the real life of Frank (Lefty) Rosenthal who left his mark in the gambling industry.

Money, power, greed, lust, and crime with flair intertwine in seventies' Sin City. Pileggi is a natural born story-teller who knows how to make it all work and keep you glued to the book with every turn of the page. The writing is style is spot on. It's so hard to find contemporary literature written with such a simple language, yet capable of conveying an intriguing story.

The fact that I had only seen bits and pieces of the movie, also helped. I could place the faces of De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone behind the characters while still enjoying the novelty of getting acquainted with the story for the real time.

I would recommend this to anybody who is interested in recent history, the mob, and the gambling industry overall.

Great piece on the mob and its Vegas heyday.......2006-05-22

Perhaps a little more well known for "Wiseguys", the book that became the movie "Goodfellas", Nicholas Pileggi is as good as they get when it comes to writing about the Mafia, its people and the drama of living the life. It is unfortunate that he doesn't work very fast - more books would be welcome.
"Casino" is the true story of Vegas in its heyday prior to the mega resort/casinos we see today, like Excalibur, New York New York, The Luxor, etc. Before large corporations turned Las Vegas into a theme park with casinos, the Chicago mob pretty much controlled the then famous casinos of the day, like the Stardust, where the movie "Casino" disguises it with the fictional name of The Tangier. Skimming the profits was the mob's business. Perhaps the greatest handicapper of all time, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, ran three major casinos and ran them well. Chicago sent out the legendary Tony Spilotro to keep an eye on "Lefty" and protect him and the moolah. Spilotro, however, had ideas of his own and soon became mired in a horrendous mess, dragging Rosenthal and eventually all the mob controlled casinos to their demise with him. Rosenthal still lives, and even has a web site, but Spilotro at books' end learns the hard way that being insubordinate to the mob and skimming their skim has dire consequences.
Pileggi is a master at showing a picture of the lives of these people, the shady deals, the threats from every corner, from the state, other criminals and the Mob, and how difficult life is for those who choose the gambling scene as a way of life.
It's morbid but fascinating reading. A must for fans of organized crime books.

a great read!!.......2005-07-02

This book is really great.Hate to tell that jackass who wrote the olsen casino review but its a non fiction story and it was written long before the movie came out. Anyone interested in the mob or vegas will love this book!

ODDS ARE YOU'RE GONNA LIKE IT.......2005-05-04

I found this book to be a good read since I like reading about mob history. I always find it interesting to read about the different money making oppurtunities that they create, and in Vegas boy did they find a jackpot! Because I have read other mob books I was familiar with some of the names mentioned in the book and their backgrounds. The movie Casino has been around for 10 yrs. and I refused to watch it until I had read the book, well I rented it as soon as I finised the book and was very pleased with how the movie followed the book. It was good to have all the inside info that the book gave me as watched the movie. If you're into mob stuff I have to believe you will like this book.

Average customer rating:

CASINO Love and Honor in Las Vegas
NICHOLAS PILEGGI
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HZ7WV8

Average customer rating:

CASINO: LOVE AND HONOR IN LAS VEGAS.
Nicholas. Pileggi
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O7YV90

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Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas
Nicholas Pileggi; Larry Shandling
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UIM1XQ

Casino: love and honor in Las Vegas [sound recording]

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Casino: love and honor in Las Vegas [sound recording]
Nicholas Pileggi
Manufacturer: W.W. Norton and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KU8TRQ

CASINO: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, a true story.

Average customer rating:

CASINO: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, a true story.
Nicholas Pileffi
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NPTU3U

Product Description

100 Scrapbook pages you can make in one hour or less! So much to do so little time! Pictures pile up faster than you can place them in your album. If, like many scrapbookers, you grapple with the can't-catch-up problem, then Quick & Easy Scrapbook Pages is your perfect guide for solutions. Waiting for you inside: A comprehensive gallery of simple yet stunning scrapbook pages sure to excite and inspire Helpful ready-to-use page design templates for clean, creative layouts. Terrific suggestions for simplifying your favorite "complex" scrapbooking techniques Advice from real readers about finding the time to scrapbook Plus dozens of extras, including inspirational quotes, a quick color-mood psychology tutorial and variations for punches, embellishments, sticker borders, title treatments and more. Learn how to make the most of your scrapbooking time! Both instructional and inspirational, Quick & Easy Scrapbook Pages is a must-have for any scrapbooker's library. F & W Publications

Customer Reviews:

Not that quick, easy or simple.......2007-09-25

I'm a beginner but I'm an addict and this book was not helpful at all. It is all about the doo dads and the add ons, and there were very few layouts that had more than two photos on the page. I am more interested in simple, clean (and easy and quick) layouts where the photos are the focus. This book was not the book for that. The sequel which I bought at the same time was a bit better, so if you're still considering this book at least buy the sequel.

For beginners only.......2007-08-10

I ordered this book after reading all the great reviews, and I was disappointed. I was expecting 100 layout ideas that I could use as a starting point for my own layouts. Yes, there are 100 layouts in the book, but it is a VERY, VERY basic book, and the layouts are VERY simplified. It's pretty much a resource for beginners on how to use basic products and how to journal. I'll be giving this away to a newer scrapbooker.

great.......2007-07-20

I love this book. It has a lot of creative and fun ideas. All can easily be adapted to fit your own needs. My money was well spent.

not so great.......2007-07-12

Not as many good ideas. I was hoping for 100 different layout options, but it was ways to use layout, embellishments, etc, not just layouts. Book was kind of cheesy

Great resource to get you going on road block days.........2007-01-29

Ever have days where you just don't feel creative? This book offers quick ideas that will get you over that stump or help a beginnner get going. Well worth the price.

Book Description

This is a practical guide to the application of feng shui in the garden, examining the principles of feng shui, functional and decorative garden buildings, water features and ornaments, and plants to fit in with the feng shui of your garden.

Garden Feng Shui : Beginners Guide (Beginner's Guide Ser.)

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Garden Feng Shui : Beginners Guide (Beginner's Guide Ser.)
Roni Jay
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

Incredibly Helpful Marriage Book

A must read

This is the most helpful book I have read on marriage.

Caution! This book will transform your marriage!

Strike the Original Match
Charles R. Swindoll
Manufacturer: Living Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Marriage | Relationships | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Swindoll, Charles | ( S ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Laugh Again

Love Life for Every Married Couple

Getting through the Tough Stuff

Marriage: From Surviving to Thriving: Practical Advice on Making Your Marriage Strong

Communication: Key to Your Marriage: A Practical Guide to Creating a Happy, Fulfilling Relationship

Accessories:

Health o Meter HDC100-01 "Grow with Me" Teddy Bear Scale for Babies and Toddlers

Braun IRT 4020 ThermoScan Ear Thermometer

ASIN: 0842364455

Book Description

Chuck Swindoll draws on the best marriage-survival guide--the Bible--and his many years of marriage to show couples how to survive, flex, grow, forgive, and keep romance alive in their marriage.

Customer Reviews:

Incredibly Helpful Marriage Book.......2006-09-01

By now Swindoll is a little larger than life. His powerful sermons and insightful books have influenced an entire generation of Christ-followers. But in this little known early work he offers timeless advice that stands up 16 years later.

In fact I consider his chapter on "Fighting Fair" to be the best advice I've ever heard, seen or read on how to manage conflict in a God-honoring way.

Great stuff!

A must read.......2000-06-18

This book should be read by couples with problems as well as those who think they are doing fine. It is a must read for newlywed couples.

This is the most helpful book I have read on marriage........1999-06-10

I have quoted from Charles Swindoll's Strike the Original Match Published by Multnomah Press 1980, Pages 19, 22 in a book I've written, ready to be published in a few weeks. How and whom do I contact to gain permission to use these quotes?

Thank you for your help.

Caution! This book will transform your marriage!.......1999-03-29

This book is packed with so much excellent advice! The best thing about it is it's source - our main Handbook for Life, the Bible. This book gives us the practical applications for the principles that God has given us in His Word, so that we can experience His best for us. I've heard so many people wish for an instruction book when encountering one of life's biggest or most important experiences, and I can heartily recommend this book as an excellent instruction book for having success in your marriage experience. It is as simple as putting the principles to work with a sincere, whole heart. Study it - chapter by chapter, alone or with your spouse - and let your marriage be transformed!

Average customer rating:

Strike the Original Match
Charles R. Swindoll
Manufacturer: W Pub Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Strike the Original Match Rekindling and Preserving

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Strike the Original Match Rekindling and Preserving

Manufacturer: world wide pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Cards

Strike the original match: Bible study guide : from the Bible-teaching ministry of Charles R. Swindoll

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Strike the original match: Bible study guide : from the Bible-teaching ministry of Charles R. Swindoll
Charles R Swindoll
Manufacturer: Insight for Living
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Strike the Original Match

ASIN: B00072BPV4

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Strike Original Match (Life Topics)
Charles R. Swindoll
Manufacturer: David C. Cook Distribution
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Education | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Test Prep Central | Reference | Subjects | Books

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Strike The Original Match
Swindoll
Manufacturer: Tyndale House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JGOXSA

Average customer rating:

Strike the original match
Charles R Swindoll
Manufacturer: Multnomah Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Average customer rating:

Strike the original match: Bible study guide from the Bible-teaching ministry of Charles R. Swindoll
Charles R Swindoll
Manufacturer: Insight for Living
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Strike the Original Match: Rekindling and Preserving Your Marriagefire

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Strike the Original Match: Rekindling and Preserving Your Marriagefire
Charles R. Swindoll
Manufacturer: Multnomah Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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STRIKE THE ORIGINAL MATCH
Charles Swindoll
Manufacturer: Multnomah Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H1IUMC

Book Description

Diane is the frank and compelling story of an extraordinary woman and her adventures in fashion, business, and life. "Most fairy tales end with the girl marrying the prince. That's where mine began," says Diane Von Furstenberg.

She didn't have to work, but she did. She lived the American Dream before she was thirty, building a multimillion-dollar fashion empire while raising two children and living life in the fast lane.

Von Furstenberg's wrap dress, a cultural phenomenon in the seventies, hangs in the Smithsonian Institution. "No one was making a little bourgeois dress, so I did," she told Newsweek in her 1976 cover story. The dress achieved such popularity that in the five years it was on the market, Diane sold more than five million of them. Her entry into the beauty business in 1979 was as serendipitous and as successful.

Diane learned her trade in the trenches, crisscrossing the country to make personal appearances at department stores, selling her dresses and cosmetics. "As I was learning to be a woman and enjoying being one, I was sharing my discoveries, designing for my needs, and making a business of it," she writes. That business had its ups and downs. Eventually, there was so much demand for and exposure of the dress that the market became saturated; on the verge of bankruptcy, she licensed that part of the business, focusing on her fragrance and beauty products.

Von Furstenberg's personal world unraveled a bit in 1980 when her mother, Lily, a survivor of Auschwitz, had a breakdown. Diane of course knew about her mother's experience in the camps, though her mother had never wanted to dwell on it. She understood that her own need for freedom came from her mother's lack of it, and that her resilience derived from her mother's life lesson to always turn a negative into a positive.

Leaving the glitz of Manhattan and the music of Studio 54 behind, Diane escaped to Bali with her children, returning inspired and renewed. With all of this energy, the cosmetics business flourished. But it grew so fast that in 1983 she found herself undercapitalized and was forced to sell.

In 1985, having given up control of her brand to licensees and with her children away at school, Diane turned her back on America and packed for Paris. She spent four years in her new role as part of the literary scene there, trading in her spike heels for flat shoes and tweed.

In 1990, she found she missed the chase and returned to New York to regain control of her name and relaunch her company. Frustrated by the degraded status of her brand and dismissed by the retail community, she searched for a new way to reconnect with her customers. She found it through the revolutionary new medium of teleshopping and once again became a success. However, she still wanted to return to retail.

In 1997, as the wrap dress was making a comeback with the nostalgia for the seventies, Von Furstenberg, with the help of her beautiful daughter-in-law, Alexandra, redesigned the dress for the nineties and made her name relevant to a whole new generation.

Now, at fifty, Diane works to make sense of the contradictions in her life: glamour vs. hard work, European vs. American, daughter of a Holocaust survivor vs. wife of an Austro-Italian prince, mother vs. entrepreneur, lover vs. tycoon. She emerges wiser, stronger, and ever more determined never to sacrifice her passion for life.

Customer Reviews:

Not a bad read.......2007-09-14

Yes, she came from a privileged background, and had many doors opened for her as a result, but definitely deserves all credit for what she made of those opportunities. She plays down the business side of herself, preferring to highlight the creative aspects of her personality, but underneath it all, she does seem to possess a sharp business sense and an intuition for how to best position and market her products. Also, the ability to constantly reinvent herself, and seek out new ideas comes through in the book. Her success story is inspiring.

On the negative side, there was too much name-dropping. Some parts were annoyingly elitist - I think she must have said at least half a dozen times in the book (or at least it seems that way) that her ex-husband was a prince whose bloodline descends from the roman empire (or some other empire, don't remember). Connections to royalty are mentioned in awestruck tones, which is grating on the nerve. There is also a lot of touting of her own achievements - admittedly the pride is well deserved, but some subtlety in talking about it would have been classier.

Truly Inspiring.......2007-02-14

This book is very interesting. YOu get to learn about the fashion industry and what to expect. Since I myself am interested in entering the fashion world as a career this book helped me understand that at times buisness may be stressful but always worthwhile. Diane von Furstenberg is a women that went through many hardships but was dedicated to her work, and someday i hope to do my work as succesfully as she did.
-amanda, Grayslake

shoot me now.......2004-04-14

This has to be one of the most insipid tales yet told. It's promoted as "she didn't have to work - but she did". She did? When? Where? Look - don't promote an idea and then tell the story that completely contrasts it. This person has yet to understand what "work" is. This book is a story of a rich person who uses connections to get richer. Wow! - what a story!
Now if it was about a person who worked from nothing - and built a brand like the rest of us schleps would have to, then I'd say she did something - "she worked"! But not the case here, even though she portrays it that way. Unconvincing and boring.

A glamourous life.......1999-09-18

Diane lets us inside her very glamourous life. she takes us from the 60's to the 90's. her life is full of fashion, family, friends and love. i really enjoyed this book and have a new admiration for diane.

Facinating yet vapid.......1999-05-18

Diane gives us a facinating glimpse into her world of the fast lane of the 70s and the glamous life which she led. But a glimpse is all we really get and Diane spares us many details which she must have felt would offend the people still important in her life. Further, while she ostensibly takes responsibility for how her businesses went horribly wrong, we somehow get the feeling that everyone else was to blame. Hey, the next time you license your products to Sears, please take a step inside. You will see that it's not Saks! In sum, a fun read but it not a revealing biography or any kind of a business book.

Average customer rating:

Diane: A Signature Life
Von Furstenberg; Diane
Manufacturer: SIMON and SCHUSTER
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WTQ8T6

Book Description

When Edward Ironside was murdered in 1016, Canute the Dane seized the crown of Wessex. The following year, conscious of the threat posed to his rule by Edmund's small sons, Edmund and Edward Ætheling, he banished them to Sweden, with a `letter of death'. The Swedish king, however, spared their lives, and the Continental wanderings of the Anglo-Saxon princes began; their uncertain fate greatly exercised the minds of contemporary English chroniclers. Forty years later the ageing, childless Edward the Confessor learned that his nephew Edward was living in Hungary; he invited him to return home, casting him in a crucial role in the struggle to avert a Norman takeover, but forty-eight hours after his triumphant homecoming he was dead, and the events that were to lead to the Norman conquest of 1066 were set in motion. Drawing on sources from as far afield as Iceland and Kievan Russia, this account of the extraordinary years of the princes' exile is a story stranger than fiction, unravelled by Gabriel Ronay with all the excitement of a modern-day crime study. GABRIEL RONAY wrote for The Times for many years. He was born in Transylvania, and studied at the universities of Budapest and Edinburgh. He came to Britain after the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. `Popularly written but scholarly book.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPHAfter the murder of Edmund Ironside in 1016, Canute the Dane seized the crown of Wessex, banishing Edmund's small sons, Edmund and Edward, to Sweden with a `letter of death'.However, their lives were spared and the continental wanderings of the Anglo-Saxon princes began. Gabriel Ronay fills in the years of their exile concluding with Edward's death forty years later, just forty-eight hours after his triumphant return to England.

Customer Reviews:

A worthwhile addition to medieval biographies.......2001-08-04

The Lost King of England provides a vivid picture of the lives of the exiled sons of Edmund Ironside, Edmund and Edward Atheling. The book is well written and should be a welcome addition to medieval biographies on English Royalty.

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