5 comments about William Wallace.

1. With someone with little background in medieval history this book was well over my head. It felt as if the author assumed the reader to have a basic background on the subject. I do not and was hoping to build one with this book. Obviously I was wrong.



2. This book was a laborious read, as most works of history are. But the information didn't come as a bombardment, it came in morsels amidst a story that the reader wants to know. It is widely believed this is the definitive depiction of Wallace, and it is clear why, it is not solely about the man himself, but about the political climate and the players and the men in power around him.
   
   One will come away with eyes opened, and will understand the enigma that is William Wallace a little better. It is a book without a life of it's own, but it does a great justice to Wallace's.



3. This goes good with the other book that I have on him William Wallace: Guardiian of Scotland.
   very helpful and interesting.



4. The one book (through Fisher) that sifts through the myths and facts about this Scottish hero.
   
   As a student of Scottish history, I would reccomend this well written book to any serious follower of Scottish history.



5. A fine collection of pretty much everything known about the historical Sir William Wallace, organized like a biography. I would recommend this book for someone who, like me, loves to read about and research the history of their Scottish ancestors, or who is seeking to read about the real man behind 'Braveheart'.

3 comments about Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton, and the Changing Face of Heroism.

1. Meant for both Heroic Age of Polar Exploration novices and experts, Antarctic Destinies ultimately proves rather disappointing for both. The author did an outstanding job of reading and collecting popular literature about her subject, however, there is too much basic background on Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton for those who are polar afficionados, and too much detail about how these men were viewed in their day and ours for the reader who is unfamiliar with the countless books written on Scott and Shackleton.
   
   For the fan of polar exploration, it is interesting to read about the rise and fall of Scott, and the fall and rise of Shackleton. However, the author makes promises she does not keep. Throughout the book, there are hints that she will discuss why Shackleton's reputation as an almost superhuman leader of men in tight situations is overblown. The author, however, does not get around to disputing Shackleton's reputation until the Epilogue, and then only mentions briefly the diaries of two of Shackleton's men, James Wordie and Leonard Hussey. She does discuss very briefly the Ross Sea Party fiasco, but Shackleton was not directly involved in leading those men. Instead, she drops comments like "It does not matter that much of this is hyperbole (praise from a modern British writer about Shackleton)at best and utter falsehood at worst; what matters is that Moore, like her readers, believes that it is true, because that is the Shacklton she imagines, and wants to imagine." There is then no discussion about what makes it either hyperbole or why the writer is lying.
   
   Two final notes: there are a few typographical errors with words either left out or misused, and it would have been nice to have a bibliography of the many works the author read in preparation. Instead, the reader is left to comb the very copious notes.



2. An authoritative and well researched review. The author has used her literary skills with inteligence and there is evidence of a degree of passion for her subject. I have enjoyed the book immensely.
   I don't consider this a book for the novice. One needs a reasonable understanding of Antarctic exploration and history to appreciate the finer points encountered.
   There is a bias towards Scott in her comparisons, but the author makes her position clear from the outset;in fact her reason for writing the account.
   I am full of admiration for her exhaustive research on the achievements of the two explorers and their life and times. I have found the account a wonderful addition to my Antarctic Library and it is already being used as a source of reference to other work.
   There some factual errors in the text and in one photo along with some typographical errors, which are disappointing in such an authoritative review, but do not detract from the substance of the theme.
   I have pleasure in recommending this work. I believe all 'Antarcticans' would enjoy this account which offers a catalyst to 'polarise' ones views on the destinies of these two explorers.



3. ANTARCTIC DESTINIES: SCOTT, SHACKLETON AND THE CHANGING FACE OF HEROISM follows the changing reputations and historical discovers of three early explorers of the Antarctic and their entwined lives and objectives. The idea of the heroic explorer and their special challenges comes to life in chapters that reveal their changing images, their lives, and how and why their reputations have changed in the literature. Any general-interest library strong in exploration history and Antarctic history in general will find this invaluable.

1 comments about The Seven Lives of Colonel Patterson: How an Irish Lion Hunter Led the Jewish Legion to Victory (Military).

1. A man of many different talents, the life of Colonel John Henry Patterson seems like the work of fiction. "The Seven Lives of Colonel Patterson: How an Irish Lion Hunter Led the Jewish Legion to Victory" is a biography well earned, following the life of this revolutionary man. Following his life through his time starting out as a hunter and his adventures in East Africa, from his ardent fighting for the state of Israel later in life, it's a complex look at a complex individual. "The Seven Lives of Colonel Patterson" is a must for biography fans looking for a truly remarkable story.

No comments about Island Cross-Talk (Oxford Paperbacks).

5 comments about No Excuses: One Man's Incredible Rise Through the NFL to Head Coach of Notre Dame.

1. This is a very refreshing story of how an outwardly ordinary person with some extraordinary insight and self-confidence goes from being a regular kid to a top level coach, and how he balances his family life with his professional life. He doesn't dish dirt or tattle, and it isn't all about Notre Dame Football. He acknowledges success and failure without bragging about his system or complaining about setbacks. He doesn't breach the privacy of others to sell his story, so details of who said what and who did what are not there, though he does give plenty of credit where it is due. It's dignified but not stuffy or superior. You just can't help but admire him, and you wish you had a boss with his sense of priorities, directness, and honesty.
   
   It really does hook you, so make sure you have plenty of time when you first open it to read the whole thing. I bought this for my spouse for Christmas. While wrapping it, I took a little peek. Two hours later I finished it. It was just too darn interesting to put down, and I am not a big football fan. Then I kept thinking about it and had to stop myself from quoting it (to keep from spoiling the surprise). When my spouse opened it on Christmas Day; I warned him that it would suck him right in. He laughed and took a peek. Now I have a nice picture him, surrounded by holiday chaos and kids, completely oblivious while reading this book cover-to-cover.
   
   We both agree that this is a really terrific book. Since my spouse is a big Notre Dame fan (two ND degrees and grew up in South Bend), but I am not, I'd say that this book appeals to a wide variety of people.



2. The book has several interesting stories. Though CW doesn't mention it, he must have been a pretty smart student to get admitted to ND. I thought he said his dad was of a blue collar profession, so he must have gotten quite a bit of financial aid.
   
   I found his story about how he quit HS coaching to take a grad assistantship at South Carolina interesting, as well as how he was to be offered the head coaching job with the Bills, if the Patroits lost the AFC championship game to the Titans. I also found his early days as coach of the Fighting Irish to be interesting. All in all, it's a story of a hard working guy who always tried to do the right thing and succeeding to get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.



3. This book is a fast read, and I really liked it. I thought he made his points and got his story across very well, and gives some insight as to how the coaching profession works. I recommend it.



4. Coach Weis starts this short autobiography out with a funny story about his student days at Notre Dame and how he had the nerve to complain to the University president about the football team. I would say that this is a rather interesting way for the man who is now in charge of that same football team to start out his book. Right up front Charlie Weis says to us the fans that he understands what it is like to be frustrated and that we Notre Dame fans really matter to him. I like this guy!
   
   I say that this is a short autobiography because there is so much yet to be written in the Charlie Weis story but there is still a lot of information to be found in these pages. I must admit that I had wondered how a guy who hadn't even played college football became the coach of the most storied program in the sport and by reading this book I got my answers. Charlie Weis is one hard working guy. This is not to say that he didn't get some major breaks along the way because he did and he freely acknowledges that he did. Coach Weis is proud of his work ethic and that comes across loud and clear in this book but the man doesn't have a conceited bone in his body. I like this guy!
   
   When Coach Weis was hired at Notre Dame most Irish fans read up on him in a hurry and so we knew the basics of his sparkling pro career but in this book we get a little more of story including some things that I'm sure that he didn't really care to share but he shared them anyway and the book is all the better for it. I really do like this guy!
   
   Best of all, we finally get a look at Coach's personal life and we learn about his wonderful wife and his special relationship with his son. We also get a glimpse of his relationship with his special needs daughter who is able to communicate very clearly when she wants her dad to go away and leave her alone. The proceeds from this book go to a foundation he has set up in the name of his daughter Hannah and it was for the love of her that he even agreed to write this book. Did I mention that I like this guy?
   
   This book is not a deep tome on Charlie Weis' coaching philosophy or an insight into the Notre Dame program. That may well come later when he has been at South Bend for a few more years. This is simply the basic story of a man who accepts no excuses from his players or himself and who expects everyone to give their all for the good of the team. This is Charlie Weis 101 and I hope that the graduate level course won't be too long in coming.



5. Take ajourney with Charles Weis, New Jersey born
   and raised guy who happened to go down and talk
   to one of the 'Fathers' in the Notre Dame Athletic
   office one day back in 1975 about what HE thought
   the 'Fightin' Irish' should be doing to inprove
   the football team. Fast forward through the years
   as Charlie Weis becomes the sports enthusiast who
   moves up through the ranks and becomes a first rate
   football coach who ends up going back to Notre Dame
   after winning FOUR Super Bowls and becomes it's H.
   Coach! Great and inspirational reading! As good as
   Marv Levy's fine football book, "Where Else Would
   You Rather Be?"

4 comments about Queen Victoria (British History in Perspective).

1. Queen Victoria has more biographies written about her than any woman born after 1800. This biography takes note of the work done in the past and tries to fill in where the author thinks previous works have been lacking. She is a paradoxical monarch who is largely misunderstood. Becoming Queen in 1837 at the tender age of 18, her 64 year reign would span one of the greatest periods of cultural evolution in history. Europe was also unusually peaceful during this period. A shrewed politian, Victoria was the last British monarch to wield great authority. To help explain the "Victorian" zietgiest, a large portion is devoted to the relationship between Victoria and her Husband, Prince Albert. This book's greatest weakness is it's greatest asset: it is short (many other biographies are published in large volumes). At the expence of the druging details of history, he provides a biography that is both interesting and manageable. In the author's own words, he aims to "whet the readers appitite for more and to alert that same reader to the books and articles in which additional historical nourishment may be found." (p.13) A great book, an easy read; 4.5 out of 5 stars.



2. Written by a Professor Emeritus of History of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Queen Victoria is an engaging expose of both the private and public life of the princess who inherited Britain's throne as a teenager and became the strong guiding figure and symbolic head of the largest empire in the world. Drawing upon past studies and research as well as Victoria's own writings to illuminate her not only as a ruler, but as a human being gripped by concerns ranging from gender roles and religion to political machinations and the state of Ireland. An excellently researched and presented portrayal of one of the strongest and most influential women of history.



3. When you think of Queen Victoria, sometimes you visulize a cold and distant monarch. This book looks into to life of a very young queen and how her impact influenced a 3 generations. It will help the reader understand the English family and monarchy. Paced well and very enjoyable. It will be time well spent. Donna Pitcock



4. There's a lot of good information in this book about the history of Victoria's life.

No comments about Charles I: A Life of Religion, War and Treason.

5 comments about Thomas Cranmer: A Life.

1. MacCulloch seeks to present Archbishop Cranmer as a radical protestant with little scholarly interest or knowledge of the early church, and also that the "via media" of Anglicanism that resulted from the English Reformation was contrary to Cranmer's radical protestant beliefs and is a "myth." While MacCulloch may have written a biography he failed to examine the source of Cranmer's beliefs and theology. MacCulloch claims that Cranmer's eucharistic theology stems from the Swiss Reformed tradition: one had only to read Basil Hall's essay in "Thomas Cranmer: Churchman and Scholar" edited by Ayris and Selwyn to see that this is demonstrably false. Cranmer was heavily influenced by Lutheranism as well as by the "exposition of the most holy and learned fathers and martyrs" of "the holy catholic church of Christ from the beginning" (Cranmer's words) and as such his theology clearly stands in the same line as that of Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes. This sort of "scholarship" with an obvious ax to grind is perhaps the worst sort. If you want to know Cranmer's views on the Sacraments (as most Anglicans or scholars of the Reformation do) please read him in his own words in "A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ" (if you can find a copy in the library) or in "Thomas Cranmer: Churchman and Scholar."



2. MacCulloch's book provides access to the singularly foundational figure of the reformation in England. Most who recognize Cranmer's name at all know him only as the author of the first Prayer Book or the man who attained Henry VIII's annulment from Catherine. MacCullogh gives depth to Cranmer as a flawed yet faithful agent of the Church, one who sought with conviction the reformation of the Church of England but was also willing to slavishly follow his prince in order to achieve that reformation. The final chapter, chronicling Cranmer's fall and ultimate martyrdom, reads with the pace of a good novel. For Episcopalians and others with an affinity for the Anglican tradition, insight into Cranmer's life and thought is crucial, and MacCulloch presents that insight with skill.



3. Many Anglican history books have an axe to grind. But not this masterful biography. The Thomas Cranmer of MacCulloch is very human, but no villian nor an unblemished hero.
   
   We see his theological evolution from a fairly orthodox Catholic to a stauch Protestant who went to the stake in defiance of Bloody Mary and the "Antichrist" Pope.
   
   MacCulloch also takes the reader into the historical sources and their reliability. These, along with his extensive footnotes will be of interest to any serious student of Anglican history.
   
   Yet this longish book is very readable and rarely gets bogged down, again unlike some other Anglican histories.
   
   If you want to learn about Thomas Cranmer or about early Anglicanism, this book is a must read.
   
   
   Mark Marshall is the author of God Knows What It's Like to be a Teenager.



4. I took "Thomas Cranmer" on in order to make sense of a seeming paradox: What I already "knew" of him did not square with the theology I had begun to discover in his Collects and Prayer Book. I was curious!
   
   MacCulloch does a masterful job at presenting this complex, and sometimes contradictory figure of the early English Reformation. Despite the derrogatory review given by "a reader," I found very little bias and no axe-grinding in this work. Actually, I came to the book expecting some bias. Even being thusly prepared and properly skeptical, I found only a very few times that MacCulloch let his own opinions show through. (When he does, it is in parentheses with exclamation points!!) You can almost hear him chuckle at times.
   
   I read the book in 9 or 10 days, and never found it to be a chore; in fact, the most difficult thing was putting it down and going to bed! While the book is scholarly, and masterfully written, it is definitely not tedious or boring.
   
   I came to the end of the book with a deep respect for Cranmer. I have many points of disagreement with him, and yet a certain admiration for his eventual willingness to heroically stand where he believed the Gospel compelled him to stand. Fr. James DeKoven, an early Anglican theological hero in Wisconsin, once said "We live at a time when cowardice in matters of religion has been elevated to the status of virtue." Archbishop Thomas Cranmer proved, in the end, to be anything but a coward.
   
   I have corresponded several times now with Professor MacCulloch, and find him to be humble, dedicated, and helpful. I am now reading his "The Reformation: a history," and I plan to read everything else of his that I can get my hands on!



5. I have'nt finished this book but as you've asked me I respond. The book is heavy going,but probably no one will ever do better owing to the subject i.e Cranmer's deeds are known in all their inconsistancies in the earlier years,but nothing is known of the personal reasonings that gave rise to them.
   Even the glories of his style of writing just seemed to come from nowhere,but the Author does a good job in explaining its inimitableness

4 comments about Hidden Letters.

1. Hidden Letters is impossible to put down. Philip "Flip" Slier was interned in a Nazi labor camp in the Netherlands, but wrote loving, optimistic letters home--and took many photographs. Then he, and virtually all of his extended family, disappeared into the Holocaust.
   When the letters were discovered in Amsterdam in 1997, a search was made for Flip's closest relative, who turned out to be his first cousin Deborah, whose father had moved his family to South Africa and thus enabled them all to live through the war.
   Deborah and her husband, Ian Shine, spent ten years having the letters translated and researching the places and the people they described. They interviewed many survivors of the Holocaust and the war, and include information about almost all--including their photographs and ultimate fates. Over 300 photographs are included.
   Flip could write and you fall in love with him as you read. When the letters stop, it is devastating.
   This is a compelling, disturbing, and heartbreaking great read.
   Kathleen Baxter, columnist, School Library Journal



2. When you read HIDDEN LETTERS, the book is going to leave a mark. It's going to hurt down deep and leave you thinking about things long after you've finished the book. After receiving the book, I admit to approaching the book warily. The subject matter is brutal, and it's devastating to anyone who's a parent.
   
   First, a little history on the book. The letters that comprise the human narrative within the pages were discovered in Amsterdam in 1997. They were written by an eighteen year old Dutch Jew named Philip "Flip" Slier. He was sent to a Dutch labor camp in 1942. When first sent there, Slier believed he was going to be treated humanely, though restricted. He didn't know the horror that awaited him, or that he would soon be dead.
   
   At the time Slier first went to the work camps, letters shipped regularly between the families and the restricted men. As I read the letters, I was stunned by the naïve manner that Slier exhibited. He honestly thought he was only going to be there for a short time, and that his experiences there would be nothing more than what he would endure during some summer camp.
   
   As a father of five, I know how innocent kids can be. They think they know so much, but they're blind to so many things. They often don't know they're in over their heads until it's much too late.
   
   And that's what happened with Slier.
   
   I felt somewhat guilty while reading his letters, almost voyeuristic into a world of pain and innocence. The letters are inane and even cheerful. At times Slier obviously felt he was on some grand adventure. At other times I could see that he was putting on a front for his parents, acting brave while he was scared to death, or at least mightily confused by what was going on around him.
   
   That human element, and that innocence, is what is going to haunt me about the book. Slier also took a camera with him. He took several pictures and sent them back home to his parents and friends, and those people managed to hang onto them throughout the blackest days of World War II. I saw his face, and I saw how much of a kid he still was. He aged decades in months, and he finally got killed.
   
   That's one side of the story, but the authors added a tremendous amount of history materials to further the reader's understanding of what was going on in this area at this time. More pictures and maps fill the book. On one hand, HIDDEN LETTERS is a short journal of tumultuous times in a young man's life, but on the other hand the book is a great historical record. I love history, and I equate it with the story of people rather than names and dates. But Philip Slier's story truly brings home the fact that history is made up of people more than dates or events.
   
   HIDDEN LETTERS is going to satisfy the armchair historian's perusal of the time period, and will give some sense of people and what was going on to genealogists that have discovered they've got family members that were in this camps at the same time. For either of those groups, I'm sure the book would be a beneficial addition.
   
   The parents saved those letters all those years. I can't imagine what it must have been like to pull them out every so often and read the last words of their lost son.



3. Hidden Letters is a treasure trove of letters and postcards written in 1942 by an 18 year old Dutch Jew named Philip "Flip" Slier, sent almost daily from Flip to his parents from within the forced labor camp that held Flip. Flip was eventually executed in the Nazi death camp Sobibor. Now translated and reprinted, completely unedited and enhanced with annotation from Deborah Slier and her husband Ian Shine, Hidden Letters is a first-person account of life in Nazi-occupied Holland. Black-and-white photographs and interviews with those who knew Flip, as well as with Selma Wijnberg-Engel (the sole Dutch survivor of the October, 1943 uprising in Sobibor) round out this firsthand testimony. A welcome addition to academic and community library Judaic Studies in general, and Holocaust Studies collections in particular.



4. So much has been written about the Holocaust that its difficult to add anything of value, but now we actually do have something that does just that; Deborah Slier & Ian Shine's new book "Hidden Letters".
   Thanks in particular to the extraordinary layout and design, we move naturally and effortlessly between the specifics of Flip's life and letters to the wider context of the Final Solution as it was implemented all over Europe and the entire Soviet Union. The usual numbing statistics come to life....the effect is at once informative and deeply emotional.

2 comments about Charles & Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair.

1. After reading a previous biography on England's current monarch and spouse by Gyles Brandreth, I was keenly keeping an eye out for his next book, this time talking about the current Prince of Wales and his second marriage, this time to his long-time mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Along the way, Brandreth takes a look at the history of royal mistresses, the ancestry of the couple in question, and reveals that there's quite a bit more going on than meets the eye.
   
   The custom of a prince or king having several mistresses -- what can be called 'girlfriends' today -- is a custom as old as when the first monarch plopped a crown on his head. Until recently, most royal marriages were arranged, where King A was available, or his son was, and King B had an unmarried daughter, and would exchange daughter in return for say, a peace treaty or financial support or whatever it was that they needed at the time. History rarely records what the poor girl thought of the match, and what was expect of her was to be fruitful, bear several heirs, and if she was lucky, there would be genuine affection in her marriage. For fun, royal men have turned to other women, an arrangement that winked at, but so long as they didn't make a fool of themselves, the men got away with it. It was only recently, with the union of England's Queen Victoria with a minor German princeling by the name of Albert, that romance -- and fidelity -- began to be the norm. For the first several chapters of the book, Brandreth discusses the various peccadillos of England's royal families, and shows how the standard came to be.
   
   The first cracks showed up with England's Edward VIII and the notorious Mrs. Simpson, a woman who was divorced, twice, and certainly not the virgo intacta that was expected of a royal wife. But Edward VIII stepped down for the woman he loved, and his younger brother Bertie -- George VI -- took the throne, and did a pretty good job of a task he never wanted. Stress and smoking made his reign a short one, and his elder daughter, Elizabeth II, is now England's queen. Which brings us to the current royal heir, Charles, the Prince of Wales, a young man of rather nervous temprament and the resources to live a life of a popular playboy.
   Unfortunately, he had those ears, and somehow the good looks of his parents skipped a generation. At a polo match, he met a young woman of aristocratic stock, funny, and just as interested as he was in polo and horses.
   
   She was Camilla Shand, somewhat pretty, and when she met the Prince, she commented, "My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?" The story, whether true or not, has entered myth, and it was rumored that the pair became lovers, and at least friends. But Charles was a bit uncertain about asking anyone to be his wife, and that lack of confidence let Camilla slip away to another man, a dashing Army officer by the name of Andrew Parker-Bowles. Camilla got married, raised some children, and remained a good friend of the Prince, while Charles went on to his chase after women, and finally, when he was in his thirties, asked another aristocratic young woman to marry him, and this time, he was accepted.
   
   This is where Brandreth's book gets interesting. Besides all of the gossip about who's sleeping with whom, a tanscription of the notorious 'tampon' conversation, he paints a very telling portrait of the Prince of Wales. As well as looking at the outside, he also attempts to look at the why as well. This is where the book becomes the most interesting, and there's quite a few AHA! moments there for the reader who isn't numbed and dazed by all of the various begats and mudslinging.
   
   And yet -- this isn't nearly as good as the biography that Brandreth wrote about Charles' parents. For one, it gets a bit too intimate in spots, and I was downright embarassed. It's one thing to read about someone who has gone on to their eternal reward, but quite another when they're alive and kicking. Diana Spencer doesn't come off too well in this one either, showing her as a very naive, not-too-bright young woman, who was just as emotionally needy as her husband, and didn't have the wits to be quiet about it. There's plenty of venom being flung about, and at times, it's not much more than a scandal sheet, and not too objective.
   
   Still, out of all the various books out there (and no doubt will continue to appear), it's not too bad, and better than most. For anyone who enjoys eavesdropping on royalty, it's not a bad read at all. There are some problems -- Brandreth is a cackling hen of a writer, flooding the pages with footnotes and smirking connections among Europe and England's elite. One thing that this book really needed was a genealogical chart or several to show all of the connections and help to keep everyone straight. I had to be constantly backing up now and then to make sure I was thinking about the right person he was discussing. Too, by scattering the footnotes throughout the book, instead of lumping them at the end as most histories do, makes it very distracting to follow along.
   
   On the other hand, there are quite a lot of photographs in several inserts, several appendices that talk about the various duties and organizations that the Prince is involved with, along with various sources and an index to track down minor royals.
   
   Summing up, this one is actually better than what I make it sound. It's a very solid four star read, despite the problems, and one that I suspect I will reread again in the future. What it does do is help to understand a very complex relationship, and finally, a love story that managed to survive scandal, death and publicity to finally come to a settled, and maybe even a peaceful resolution.
   
   Four stars. Recommended.



2. I picked up this book expecting the advertised insight into the relationship between Prince Charles and his long-time mistress Camilla, who at long last became his wife and is now known as the Duchess of Cornwall.
   
   It took perseverance.
   
   The flashes of insight are scattered through a narrative that begins with the monarchs of England and their mistresses from about the year dot. Or 736. Or something. And meanders down to the present day with endless details about the ancestors and descendants of kings, princesses, mistresses, near-mistresses, cousins, courtiers, generals, admirals, and probably a few of their horses.
   
   Reading this book is like a Sunday afternoon visit with a gossipy old uncle who knows everybody - and their dogs and cats. He rambles and rummages among a lot of boring history, can't resist going off on tangents, and yet if you listen long enough he does eventually dish the dirt. When you leave, you have learned something new, and you feel you've cheered up the old boy by engaging in the visit. Even if most of the begats and ranks and titles went in one ear and out the other.
   
   I agree with another reviewer: this book cries out for some charts to help the reader follow all of that genealogy described in such excruciating detail.
   
   This isn't a fast read. Nor is it uncritically admiring of anyone, including Charles and Camilla. On the subject of Charles' ill-starred first marriage, it's nowhere near as comprehensive and gifted as Tina Brown's The Diana Chronicles. But Brandreth leaves us with a portrait of Prince Charles as an intelligent, sensitive, dutiful boy who didn't respond as well as his sturdier sister to the often harsh regimens of his school days. Who grew into a dutiful and complex young man, still oddly diffident with women, and working hard to fulfill the duties of the unique lifelong role he was born into. Although it ended in tears - and worse - he began his first marriage in good faith, retained some affection and concern for Diana long after the marriage died, and was always an involved father.
   
   The portrait of Camilla is less complete, but then she wasn't famous from birth so information is harder to obtain. Brandreth presents her as a naturally happy person who likes to have fun. She's intelligent but not an intellectual, and is devoted to horses, hunting, gardening, and her close-knit family. And, for much of her life, to the Prince of Wales. Camilla grew up in a close and happy family, and her stability, warmth and optimism no doubt play a strong counterpoint to some of Charles' more skittish tendencies. She sounds like a good person to have as a friend: ready to have fun, loyal, and unlikely to make a fuss about a little mud tracked into the house.
   
   In Camilla, from the beginning, Charles found his soulmate. Brandreth eventually gives us a portrait of a deep and strong relationship that has survived against all odds. Whether you like these two people or not, they clearly belong together. I wonder what would have happened if they could have married each other first.
   
   As a "portrait of a love affair" this book is cluttered with too much information, both irrelevant and intimate. I didn't need the transcript of the entire "Camillagate" phone call, but it's in there. And I don't care who begat whom in 14th Century Britain. I'll take it as read that kings have historically married for duty and taken mistresses for everything else. Some historical perspective is helpful, but Brandreth piles on too much detail.
   
   You might while away a long plane flight with this book, but better also pack something else to read when you get fed up with Brandreth's incessant fussing and fidgeting.