No comments about Monarch Life and Times of Elizabeth II.

No comments about Jack Charlton.

5 comments about Dark Wind.

1. After reading some of these reviews I wonder if the people writing them actually read the book or maybe they never experienced a lost love. It is clear the author has written a very gripping account of paradise found and lost. I give him credit for seeking it out and finding it which is something most people never do. I have just started sailing and this book has reminded me just how powerful and deadly a force nature can be, regardless of preparation and skill. It is a risk all people who venture out to sea take and it is no different than driving a car. It is a good thing if this book causes people to err on the side of caution.



2. I've read this book twice in the last two weeks, A very moving story of two people looking for adventure. After both previous marriges fall apart they set upon a journy that ultimately takes the life of one and leaves the other searching his soul for forgiveness. Some how it has left me feeling evey emotion that I think Mr Chaplin had wanted to achieve with the writing of this book. A great book! A real joy reading. I just wish it were possible to tell Mr. Chaplin himself.



3. I am the author of Dark Wind, Gordon Chaplin, and this is not a review. I'd like to correct your listing of my books, which begins with the out of print audiobook version of Dark Wind, instead of the in-print paperback edition. Would it be possible to list the paperback first? Thank you for your attention.
   Gordon Chaplin



4. If you want modern sailing, adventures, dilemmas, botched revenges, lies, exotic settings, anxious families back home and eventual disaster in one of the most beautiful and unspoiled places in the world, this is your book. Dark wind tells an average tale about contemporary sailors: middle-aged couple, bouncing out of failed marriages, decides to have the big trip before it's too late: Belize, Panama, back to the US by plane, when the family needs attention, and beyond. Twilights, sunsets, the weird floating society of a port full of foreigners and their boats. Lonesome beaches, mechanical mishaps, the purchase of an EPIRB system: no classic sailing story, here, in the manner of Patrick O'Brien, but autopilots, engines and tourism. People who argue, face hard times and may look selfish. No multi-talented sailor-hero around the world on sight, either. This book is a memoir, a real story about people who suffered while chasing their dreams, and it rings true, even if it's not, which is rather out of the point as far as I'm concerned. It also provides a charming route to follow in the future, autopilot and all. And it taught me something else: if the hurricane comes close, don't ever do what they did.



5. Some reviewers may not have liked Gordon personally (a bit self-absorbed, seems to bail on his daughters, runs off with his friend's wife...), but they shouldn't hold that against his tale. The story of his ill-fated trip is more of a memoir than an adventure. I'm not sure how a critic could say the story was not convincing -- it's real and very affecting. I don't want to give away the plot, but this is a wrenching tale. How many times have we thought, "If I'd only done x, y or z..." Gordon rakes himself over the coals over and over again, but nothing can bring back the past. I thought he was brave to write of his own personal suffering, even if you don't happen to side with him. I agree that the writing wasn't as good as the very best, but it was exciting and detailed and very solid. Okay, not literary, but respectable enough for its genre. Overall, if you like a bit of the personal mixed in with adventure, you will appreciate this book although remember it is difficult in parts because of the tragedy. Overall, it was an absorbing read.

No comments about Vet in a Spin (Vet).

5 comments about Babe.

1. This is a complete and thorough examination of the life and playing career of a baseball icon. The author has done a commendable job of separating the facts from the fanciful fictions that have grown up surrounding George Herman Ruth. While his home run record has been surpassed, I still think one can argue that Ruth was the greatest baseball player when one considers that in addition to his hitting abilities Ruth was an outstanding pitcher. He was shifted to the outfield when his managers determined that he could be of greater value as an everyday player rather than pitching every third or fourth day.



2. As author of the yet to be published "Babe Ruth: The Man Behind The Legend," I have read every book I can find on the subject of Babe Ruth. The more I read, the more I appreciate Creamer's exhaustive account of Ruth's playing career. This one is, by far, the best of all and I keep it with me at all times when I am in need of reference material. It is the most thorough and comprehensive. It is easy to see why this book has endured the test of time - an amazing 33 years in print. Thank you, Robert Creamer, for your truly wonderful contribution, and may you enjoy many more years in print! Sincerely, Rebecca Rau



3. Legends transcend time. The Stories get better, the adjectives get bolder, until they become passé. Ruth was the only athlete who was already at legend at age 21. There was no reason to exaggerate, and no words to describe his ferocious dominance. And the timing of his nuclear assault on history couldn't have been better planned. Fresh from the Black Sox crisis of 1919, America's greatest sport teetered on extinction. To this day, this baby faced Neanderthal had more athletic dominance over his peers than anyone in history...and more charisma than ten W.C. Fields. He changed the sport. Some say he changed the world.
   
   Home Runs were non-existent before him. Baseball runs were earned one base at a time; singles...sacrifice bunts...a sport of hard drinking pitchers, and gritty base stealers led by Cobb. After Ruth arrived, the physical dimensions had to be rearranged just to accommodate his abilities. Mammoth stadiums were built with double the capacity, replete with awe inspiring 450+ ft fences. All because of Ruth. But the parks were no match for him. He was the all-time home run champion at age 25, HR champ 13 times in 15 years, and in his 17 years as a hitter, he hit 235 home runs 450 ft. or further. By comparision, Bonds was HR champ just twice, and hit just 3, count em, 3 450ft HRs his first 15 seasons pre-roids.
   
   I've just read the new Ruth book out called The Big Bam, but afficionado's like me still choose Beamer's documentary as the voice of record. Unlike the rest, he best captures Ruth's massive power and abilities, childhood innocence, great sense of humor and rebelliousness, and rock star image. Ruth was the real deal. He was a true legend in his own time, and wore the badge humbly on his sleeve. He lit up every room he entered, and lit up every pitcher he faced. This book is a classic, like the man himself.



4. Some personalities are too big to be contained in a single book, especially one who exemplified bigness like Babe Ruth.
   
   Ruth was not much into analyzing the whys of his greatness. As retold in Robert Creamer's 1974 biography, when asked the secret of why he hit so many home runs, he replied: "Just swinging." Asked about "the psychology of the home run" by the same reporter, Babe responded: "Say, are you kidding me?"
   
   Creamer seems to feel the same way. He's not the prose version of Jack Webb exactly, but his "Babe" is heavy on facts and remarkably light on the sort of thing modern sports writers like to fill their weighty tomes up with, cultural impact and inner-self profiling. Creamer presents teasing glimpses of Babe's revelries, and some hints of who he really was beneath the legend (one close friend says "I don't think he really loved anybody"). But his focus is on Babe the baseball player, his statistical brilliance and his awesome, game-breaking power.
   
   He broke into the majors as a pitcher, developing into "the best lefthander in the game" before it became clear, in this blessed time before the advent of the designated hitter, that he could do more to win games with his bat than his arm. What followed transformed baseball from a slightly noisier and faster version of cricket into the National Pastime. Babe Ruth didn't invent the home run, but he might as well have deserved the copyright, hitting 54 homers in 1920, more than any other entire team produced except for his Yankees, red-haired stepchildren to the fabled New York Giants until Babe arrived and changed everything.
   
   Even though his career home-run record was in the process of being broken when "Babe" was published, Ruth was about so much more than that. Creamer gets at a lot of the on-field stuff, especially, like the fact he once led the American League in batting average and, as a pitcher, produced the longest stretch of earned-run-free innings for more than 40 years.
   
   The book does come across as dry at points, though, focusing on Ruth's more measurable accomplishments and ignoring the less tangible stuff. Creamer doesn't overwhelm you with a lot of flowing prose, which is a good thing, but he leaves a lot of things alone that seem fertile ground for exploration. Possibly because the last bio I read was Robert Caro's "Path To Power," it felt like Creamer was light on sourcing, but that's probably because his method of research was a lot less formal, chats at the bar with old-timers over the course of decades condensed into the iceberg we get here.
   
   What Creamer wrote, he got right, though, something I know as a fact. My grandfather covered the Yankees and was Babe's favorite ghostwriter, and my father, who saw Babe in the Yankee clubhouse, swore by Creamer as one of sportwriting's best for giving the honest, unvarnished truth. It's not a book for boys, as Creamer notes, but "Babe" will make you feel like one reading about this real-life giant who walked the earth.



5. That was written for boys & swallowed every legend whole. Robert Creamer has written quite a bit on baseball. This may be about the best biography of its time. You can't do much better than Tom Parker if you take the audio route. I've read or listened to other works by Mr. Creamer & they are consistently good. That said he has alway seemed a bit to attached to the numbers. Baseball is the most satistical of sports & I do enjoy them. Ever year there is a new on that can be applied however unofficially to players of other eras such as the Babe. One of the newest ones now in vogue is the quality start.
   Six inningss minimum with three earned runs or less is a quality start. Having said that sometimes the numbers overwhelm the story. Stats on the Babe's minor league years will be forgotten about 2 seonds after you hear them. Mr Creamer endeavors to be accurate & may knock down some of the legends, or reduce them to believable proportions. The belly-ache heard round the world & The Babe hitting three home-runs in his last game are examples of the hype at the time. Creamer gets real & lifts, in the end his biography to a more adult level. I think Mr. Creamer dwells a bit more on Babe's other appetites, as well, such as women. His various ailments, injuries & suspensions have surprisingly depressed records that could have been even greater than they eventually were. Babe's juvenile behavior in his early years & the number of people in the baseball world that he irritated by his sometimes arrogant attitude through-out his career thwarted him in the thing he wanted most: to be a big league manager. That is sad & we'd have a lot more to talk about since he lived for another 10 years after he left baseball. He died relatively young but he was & still is (despite his numbers being slowly
   eclipsed) the greatest. If you wanted a truthful biography this is is a pretty good one & its available in the audio version.

No comments about Larry King: The Best of the Larry King Show, Vol. 3: Champions Classic Moments With Sports Heroes Hank Aaron, Arthur Ashe, Julius Irving and More.

No comments about Ludwig Von Mises.

No comments about Daniel Boone.

2 comments about White Cargo.

1. Felicity Kendal's life is everything but ordinary. Growing up in India as part of a traveling theatre company managed by her parents left her with little option of education or career. Ms. Kendal describes her childhood in India, the feelings of not fitting in in her 'native' England and the struggle to find a place. The story begans as a one sided conversation with her ailing father in a long term care facility. Moving smoothly between the past and present, the reader experiences the difficult aspects of her childhood, her love of India, the death of a much loved sister, and finally finding a place in the theatre of London. A well written and insightful book. I would recommend 'White Cargo' to any fan of this respected british actress or to anyone who has experienced the illness of a difficult, but loved parent.



2. This book was quite a revelation for me as I have always been a fan of Felicity Kendall's TV comedy shows but had no idea that she grew up in India, where I spent much of my childhood at about the same time. Frequent references to places like Breach Candy in Bombay, and the Maidan and Chowringhee Road in Calcutta brought back vivid memories. So too did certain words and phrases like chowkidars (sort of watchman or servant), peons (messengers), dhobi (manual washerman or lady), chota pegs (small whisky's) and pye-dogs (loose unfettered mongrels, often rabid).

   The descriptive writing is writing is evocative too and I quote the following passage from early in the book which aroused several senses in me: "A white mist hovered over the sprawling Maidan. In the early hours of the morning the dry grass looked lush with dew . . . the sickly sweet smell of the city had not yet taken hold of the day, and, in the cool air, the sounds of barking pye-dogs were still faint. Across the Maidan large black crows cawed and swooped at one another from the tall trees, and in the distance people walked and bicycled their way to work along the footpaths, municipal peons in their khaki shirts and bush shirts, pressed into starched creases that would not last till lunchtime, vendors in dhotis, their baskets of ware balanced perfectly on their heads, arms swinging freely in easy confidence." How brilliant is that?

   This is not only a fascinating and entertaining autobiography but it is also entwined with the parallel story of Felicity's relationship with her father. The book carries a present day story line of her father lying very ill in hospital in the autumn of his life together with Felicity's own story throughout her life.

   Felicity was taken to India by her parents as a baby as her father managed a travelling theatre specialising in the works of Shakespeare. The huge population of India together with their recent colonial British heritage meant that there was a potentially large audience the length and breadth of the sub-continent. The lifestyle of the family and acting troupe varied from splendid to meagre according to the cash flow and income generated by the performances. They boarded in splendour with Indian royalty on some occasions and in humble, if not run down lodgings on others. Felicity's first speaking stage performance was at the tender age of 9 and from then on that was to be her life. At age 18 she returned to England, against her father's will, on her own, to forge her own way in the world of theatre and found that England was a foreign country to her altogether. Never before had she owned a coat or worn gloves or stockings but the English climate dictated that she did so then. The cultural change was difficult to get used to as was the formal or strict attitude of the British compared to the more laid back philosophies espoused by the Indians.

   The story takes us through her whole life from growing up in India and learning first to speak Hindi like a native, being top of the class later in Urdu, her love affairs and marriages, her motherhood, her extraordinarily successful role in TV's "The Good Life", her work with such dramatic giants as Ismail Merchant and Derek Jacobi through to the time of publishing in 1998. Throughout her life the constant threads are her family and India - two enormous constants. I look forward to, and will really enjoy, the sequel to "White Cargo" even if it is only half as good as the first.

No comments about Thomas Jefferson: Library Edition (Ready Reader).