Set in 12th-century England, the narrative concerns the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The ambitions of three men merge, conflict and collide through 40 years of social and political upheaval as internal church politics affect the progress of the cathedral and the fortunes of the protagonists. "Follett has written a novel that entertains, instructs and satisfies on a grand scale," judged PW.

A radical departure from Follett's novels of international suspense and intrigue, this chronicles the vicissitudes of a prior, his master builder, and their community as they struggle to build a cathedral and protect themselves during the tumultuous 12th century, when the empress Maud and Stephen are fighting for the crown of England after the death of Henry I. The plot is less tightly controlled than those in Follett's contemporary works, and despite the wealth of historical detail, especially concerning architecture and construction, much of the language as well as the psychology of the characters and their relationships remains firmly rooted in the 20th century. This will appeal more to lovers of exciting adventure stories than true devotees of historical fiction.

In 1789 the French colony of Saint Domingue was the most profitable real estate in the world. These profits came at a price: while its sugar plantations supplied two-thirds of France's overseas trade, they also stimulated the greatest individual market for the slave trade. The slaves were brutally treated and died in great numbers, prompting a never-ending influx of new slaves.

The French Revolution sent waves all the way across the Atlantic, dividing the colony's white population in 1791. The elites remained royalist, while the bourgeoisie embraced the revolutionary ideals. The slaves seized the moment and in the confusion rebelled en masse against their owners. The Haitian Slave Revolt had begun. When it ended in 1803, Saint Domingue had become Haiti, the first independent nation in the Caribbean.

C.L.R. James tells the story of the revolt and the events leading up to it in his masterpiece, The Black Jacobins. James's personal beliefs infuse his narrative: in his preface to a 1962 edition of the book, he asserts that , when written in 1938, it was "intended to stimulate the coming emancipation of Africa." James writes passionately about the horrific lives of the slaves and of the man who rose up and led them--a semiliterate slave named François-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture. As James notes, however, "Toussaint did not make the revolution. It was the revolution that made Toussaint."

With its appendix, "From Toussaint L'Ouverture to Fidel Castro," The Black Jacobins provides an excellent window into the Haitian Revolution and the worldwide repercussions it caused.

Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of A People's History of the United States turns traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher Columbus's arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.

Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher, historian, and social activist for more than 20 years--explains, "My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)--that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."

If your last experience of American history was brought to you by junior high school textbooks--or even if you're a specialist--get ready for the other side of stories you may not even have heard. With its vivid descriptions of rarely noted events, A People's History of the United States is required reading for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at the rich, rocky history of America.

The author, a political science professor at Queens College in New York City, contends that whites' deep-rooted, pervasive racism against blacks has created "America's version of apartheid." Many white Americans, especially political conservatives, still harbor the prejudice that blacks are genetically inferior, he states. In an important, powerfully argued, dispassionate report that makes liberal use of tables and statistics, Hacker ( The End of the American Era ) documents racist attitudes and practices in the business sector, reveals the low percentage of blacks enrolled in colleges and exposes white racism in politics, employment practices and education and the public's perception of crime and welfare. Turning to blacks' "self-inflicted genocide" through drugs and street violence, he argues that white America shares a large measure of responsibility for this situation because it has fostered a racial chasm--a divide that seems likely to persist unless drastic steps are taken.

Hacker, who teaches political science at Queens College, is author of many essays and book reviews on race and class. Here he expounds on the thesis that "America's two principal races"--blacks and whites--are as separate and unequal as ever. Using pointed anecdotes and statistics, Hacker takes the reader through the stigma blacks feel in this country, examining the subtext of everyday acts of bias on the part of whites toward blacks. He then compares sexuality, childbirth and family, income, employment, educational equity and performance, segregated schooling, and crime between the two groups, compellingly arguing that racism does underlie much of the lag that blacks experience in this society. Hacker's research covers history, philosophical writings, and census and other statistics. His discussion of other ethnic groups, however, is less successful (e.g., grouping Asians together in terms of educational performance). Nevertheless, this is necessary reading, recommended for all public and academic libraries.

An American soldier of fortune far from home -- alcoholic, burnt out, and broken down -- Creasy has accepted a job as a bodyguard just for something to do. An emotionally dead, one-time warrior, he knows that nothing can pierce the hard shell he's built around himself -- until the little girl he's been hired to protect somehow breaks through. But having something to care about again in making Creasy vulnerable. And when the unthinkable occurs, a man on fire won't just burn ... he'll explode.

He has no past. And he may have no future. His memory is blank. He only knows that he was flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, his body riddled with bullets.

There are a few clues. A frame of microfilm surgically implanted beneath the flesh of his hip. Evidence that plastic surgery has altered his face. Strange things that he says in his delirium -- maybe code words. Initial: "J.B." And a number on the film negative that leads to a Swiss bank account, a fortune of four million dollars, and, at last, a name: Jason Bourne.

But now he is marked for death, caught in a maddening puzzle, racing for survival through the deep layers of his buried past into a bizarre world of murderous conspirators -- led by Carlos, the world's most dangerous assassin. And no one can help Jason Bourne but the woman who once wanted to escape him.

Patrick Robinson might not be the smoothest writer in the world, but for action on and around the sea he's as good as Tom Clancy or the late, much-missed Hammond Innes. Robinson's latest finds ace Iraqi terrorist Benjamin Adnam--supposedly killed at the end of Nimitz Class--alive and decorated in Baghdad. Ben instinctively knows that he is no longer useful to Saddam Hussein, and sure enough, he surprises and kills an official hit squad waiting for him at his home. Burning with the desire for revenge, Ben walks to Iran (a two-week trek through desert and marshes wonderfully described by Robinson) and convinces that country's leaders to help him launch a scheme that will punish both Iraq and the Great Satan, America.

Commander Adnam, trained as a submariner in England and Israel, hijacks the HMS Unseen,, one of the world's most dangerous and undetectable subs, refits it with Russian missile launchers, and uses it to shoot down three very high-profile airplanes, including a supersonic Concorde and a plane carrying America's much beloved vice president (this is 2006, by the way). As planned, the Iraqis are widely suspected--but national security adviser Albert Morgan recognizes Adnam's handiwork and begins a global search. There's a beautifully detailed journey, across Scotland and Ireland, before the book settles down into a smaller but satisfying story of Adnam's personal quest for some kind of redemption.

Written as a mail order course combined into a book format, lessons are conveyed on how to understand and read the auric sheath, it's colors, the ability to see the etheric and aura fields, escaping the limitations of the body through meditative practices beyond thought and conceptual thinking, intuitively feeling existence. In this are out of body auric experiences, the auric body travel while dreaming while attached by a psychic silver cord. How life as we know it is a school of suffering for growth towards higher existence beyond our incarnations of existence through reincarnation.

In order to grow psychically, one has to leave the highs and the lows of thinking in moodiness of euporhia and depression to that of the sound stable waves of inner composure and calmness. Our minds consist of electrical waves when kept level and balance exist for us in an inner peace with calm faith in the universal laws of karma where we can maintain a peaceful inner existence which induces our psychic abilities of telepathic hearing, clairvoyant visions and the psychometric ability to feel the vibrational frequencies of history in objects, places, things and people. And there is reading the Akashic Record which contains the knowledge of all history.

And T. Lobsang Rampa expounds on the act of giving, forgiving and letting go of anger and fear. This includes practices of breathing and balance of non-thinking that lets go of anger and emotional turmoils. To continue fear anger and anxiety is to run an engine in lower gear going the same speed.

During NATO exercises, the French navy unveils a nuclear submarine so advanced that it can elude any radar system in the water. But France's maritime marvel becomes its own worst enemy when a band of Algerian terrorists hijacks the boat-and threatens to wipe Paris off the face of the earth before turning their missiles against America and Russia.

Two NATO subs are called into action: the USS Hampton, captained by veteran sub warrior Burke Dillinger, and the USS Texas, commanded by the iron-willed Peter Vornado. With Paris being evacuated and time running out, the coming conflict will pit the ultimate in technological weaponry against the courage, skill, and determination of Dillinger and Vornado.

It is November 1943, and the Second World War is in its fourth year. Adolf Hitler's Third Reich is fending off Allied advances in the Eastern Front and in Italy. German cities are being bombed "around the clock" by the American and British air forces. Across the English Channel, the Anglo-American forces are marshaling troops and making plans for history's greatest amphibious operation, which is tentatively scheduled for May of 1944.

But even though Germany has suffered great defeats in North Africa and the vast territories of the Soviet Union, Hitler still has hopes of winning the war. Desperately seeking a significant propaganda victory and inspired by the rescue of fellow dictator Benito Mussolini by a team of German special forces, the Fuhrer (egged on by SS chief Heinrich Himmler) orders the head of Military Intelligence (Abwehr) to carry out an even more daring special forces mission: to capture British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and bring him to the Reich.

At first, it is an offhand remark, "a joke," as Abwehr Col. Max Radl notes, "...something the Fuhrer threw out in an angry mood on a Wednesday, to be forgotten by Friday." Soon, though, as Himmler orders a feasibility study and Radl ponders it, what seems like a fantastic notion soon starts looking as something that can, with the right men and conditions, be done.