through it to become brutally aware of their times. The huge impact of photography, with its permutations and manipulations, has created incredible images of human hope and suffering. Inured as we are to the sights of our age, anyone who leafs through the astonishing chronicle that is Bruce Bernard's Century cannot fail to be impressed and moved by this vast visual document of the last 100 years. Weighing 6kg and containing 1,100 black-and-white and colour photographs, Bernard's 30 years' experience as a picture editor with the Sunday Times Magazine have resulted in this significant document of human history. Divided into six sections--"1899-1914 High Hopes and Recklessness"; "1914-33 Self-Inflicted Wounds Remain Infected"; "1933-45 Rise and Fall of the Unspeakable";"1945-65 Atomic Truce Walks a Tightrope"; "1965-85 Vietnam to the Moon to Soviet Collapse" and "1986-99 Chaos and Hope on a Burdened Planet"--with accompanying text and quotations, Century displays an average of 10 images for each year, from the banal to the brilliant. And so in 1921 we can witness Claude Monet overseeing his glorious water-lily gardens next to an image of starving children in the Russian famine that followed the end of World War I; the young Princess Elizabeth walking her corgi in London's Hyde Park in 1934 while the facing page shows the moment of King Alexander I's assassination in Marseilles. American GIs laugh with girls on a German beach in 1946, a couple of pages on from the recently revealed horrors of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Three decades later, and 1977 brings us the Sex Pistols in concert at the advent of punk rock, while anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko lies murdered by police in his South African cell. By turns harrowing and humorous, Century is a magnificent photographic testament to 100 years of human advancement, futility, acts of heroism and episodes of unspeakable cruelty. Ending on a note of hope with a still from a 1999 German production of Beethoven's opera Fidelio,a triumph of goodness over evil, it is hard to erase the preceding images of refugees fleeing Kosovo in the same month and the same year, history's hour of darkness come round once more. --Catherine Taylor
Advantages: Good for young readers; great illustrations Disadvantages: Might frighten parents
...Masquerading as a children's book, Not Now Bernard might perhaps be seen by many as one for the parents who read it aloud as a bedtime story to their little babes. The front cover acts as an introduction to the story, setting the scene. We see a small boy whom we presume to be Bernard, gazing wide eyed at what is obviously a monster, and a fearsome one at that, baring his teeth from on top of a mound. The monster is about as broad as he is tall and is almost all face, with short limbs attached.
Opening the cover, we see the monster again, but this time he has his index finger on his mouth and looks as though he thinks he has done something wrong. On the title page we see a full-figure picture of Bernard, wide eyed again and with a minute dot for a mouth. Turn the page, and Bernard is saying hello to his Dad, pictured here banging a nail...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Readable, well researched Disadvantages: None.
..."The Winter King" is the first volume in Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles trilogy, the story is narrated by Derfel Cadarn, one of Arthur's warriors.
The novel (as would be expected in a telling of Arthurian legend) cover romance, battles and sorcery: But in a unique way. The battles are gory (as is usual with Bernard Cornwell), the characters are ofter cruel and unfeeling, and the magic is never obvious but can always be explained.
In summary, the series is the most readable and certainly the most realistic telling of the legend of Arthur and "The Winter King" is a powerful mixture of intrigue, magic and warfare....
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
somewhat helpful 30.07.2000
Gripping Review ofSharpe's Eagle - Bernard Cornwellby
markos3
Advantages: Good story, well researched Disadvantages: None.
...This is the second of Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe novels and is set around the battle of Talavera and Sharpe's quest to take a French Imperial Eagle because of his regiments dishonour in battle.
The novel is an improvement on the first in the series (Sharpe's rifles), because the author seems to have developed the characters, and the story is more gripping.
The novel is very well researched (Cornwell actually visited the site of the battle) giving a realistic flavour to the story. Definitely recommended to people who like historical novels....
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
10.04.2008
30.07.2000
