Man-eaters of Kumaon contains such spine tingling suspense as a time that the author spent the night in a tree by himself well within reach of the man-eater he was tracking. Other times he would make the final approach of a tiger alone with no help or support. Most of his kills were at less than 50 yards. Some were less than 50 feet!

These stories seemed so spectacular when I first read them I chalked it up to a man with an over active imagination. I started researching Mr. Corbett and reading any articles that I could find on him. To my surprise I found quite the opposite to be the fact. People that knew him well and went with him in the jungles all say that he toned the stories down because he thought if he told the whole truth no one would believe him!!

After I read the book, my wife who does not even hunt consumed it in a single day (which means the house turned into a mess). As soon as she finished, my 15-year-old son started on it and finished it one day later. This is a true classic about a true hero, the kind of which we are sadly lacking in today's world.

Mr. Mason, like so many Vietnam Veterans, went through pure hell over there while the American citizen went about his life casually and seemingly unconcerned. This book shows some of the times that our brave soldiers faced for us. They did their duty and I for one am proud of them!

For good, easy, fun and thoughtful reading, I highly recommend this book. It is one of my all time favorites about Vietnam and I have read it 3 times so far. Thanks Mr. Mason and God Bless!

I have had the unfortunate luck, of evacuating wounded soldiers, from a war which is still controversial in my country, but I never faced the kind of situations that Mason discribes in the book, and I have always wandered how they did it, knowing that every morning and evry mission could spell sudden death, from the enemy, or worse, by your commander's stupidity.

I think it's a book about bravery, about how these helicopter pilots in Vietnam were willing to risk their lives every day for their fellow soldiers. I believe that flying into combat, surviving it, seeing what might happen if it wasn't your lucky day, then doing it again and again and again, takes a special kind of character. Character shown by Mason.

I have read many war books, some about Vietnam, some not. My country is (unfortunately) filled with veterans, including my entire family (my father was also a pilot and my brother was in the special forces, we've all been through combat). I think this book is special in the way it touches you intimately, making you feel, just as if you were hearing the story from the author in person.

This is not about victory or defeat, this is about something else, and to know what this thing is you must read the book and look inside to see the impact it has on you.

This book is about the Vietnam danger, the boredom, the casualties, the weather and the mood of the American soldier. Throughout the book one can feel the soldiers enormous desire to "go home" and abandon the macho madness of the Vietnam tragedy. Caputo's protagonist, the element that moved the plot is the Marine's desire to survive. The author brilliantly uses the constant threat of "death" to act as a powerful antagonist that lurks from page to page.

Best of all, this book documents the brutality of war using the language of the Marine "grunt." Hence, it provides a front row seat to the thoughts and emotions of those who were condemned to risk their lives each day while in Vietnam. This is a great book that deserves attention..especially from the leaders of the nation who audaciously talk of war while never having the courage to set foot on a battlefield.

The photos accompanying the story also conveyed the feeling for the immenseness of the undertaking. However, it is good that this story will be put in the IMAX format, as the photos, as brilliant as they are, cannot convey the size and surroundings that the Himalayas require.

I would have given this book my highest rating, as I could barely drop it, except for two problems: First, the author threw out quite a few technical phrases concerning climbing, Buddhism or the mountain itself, that left me reaching for a dictionary, when I just wanted to find out what happened next. Sometimes I could figure out something from the context, sometimes I couldn't (it wasn't until the middle of the book that I discovered Cwm was a Welsh word, pronounced "koom").

My second beef is about the layout, though I'm not sure of another way to approach it. In the middle of a story, the author would mix in seperate "articles" from various authors about the climate, or geology, or religion, or filming, that while interesting, forced me to choose between continuing the page or the chapter or sentence and reading the article. I can understand the placement, but it broke my chain of thought such that it made me chop up a story that compelled me.

But these small problems were made up for by a story of courage, insight, history, and drama. By the end I realized that while Everest isn't for me, the lessons learned on the mountain can be passed on without the use of bottled oxygen or climbing gear. I highly suggest the read.

We follow the very young playful boy from his very modest home in the Tibetian province of Amdo to the capital of Lhasa where his education as a Buddhist monk begins. He relates much detail about the rich culture and beauty of Tibet; however he is honest about it's isolation and failure to keep up with a more modern world.

As he tells of the miliary and political struggle with China, one can almost feel the tension mount. The account of his escape into exile is exciting, yet sad. The destruction of Tibet, the atrocities upon its people, and the genocide still being committed there is more than sad. Yet, the Dalai Lama does not hate. He has compassion even for those who have caused the suffering of the Tibetian people.

Great book. I recommend it.

From a playful, joke playing youngster to a determined, hopeful spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama is truly the most transcendental leader in the world today. At a time when most anyone would've given up, his perserverence and hope is a true inspiratioin for us all. The reader is not merely reading an account by account of the events in the Lama's life, but actually reliving and absorbing them. At times you are laughing at the Lama's sense of humor, other times you feel the Lama's pain when driven out of his homeland.

The Dalai Lama's hope for the future is one we all need to understand, and inspire ourselves to better not only our conditions, but of those millions around the world whose conditions are worse than our own.

A well written factual account of what it was like to be a LRP in Vietnam.

Over the years, millions of books
have been written by "combat authors", expounding on their
exploits, their heroics, regardless of war; the main theme which I've
gathered from all of these books has been "This war could not
have been won if it wasn't for me being in it", or "I won
the war by myself". The books being well written, just like a
typical "Hollywood Script", leaving the reader with that
very impression. These "Hollywood Books" will suffice the
average reader, fulfilling a need for adventure. In reading "I
Served" by Don and Annette Hall, the reader isn't left with the
two above characteristics (the book is well written too), it relates
the saga of a unit, not just about a man who served in that unit,
Co. F (LRP), 51st Infantry (Airborne). While I personally didn't care
to read about another's hardship in his early years, it set the stage
for what the author endured for the sake of life, it made the man, THE
MAN. Readers are offended about exposing the fact that mercenaries
were employed by the U.S. in the war, yes the U.S. Government did
employ mercenaries, and they were ruthless
adversaries. ... Recommending the book to a histroy student is a must,
if that student wants to read the facts about one unit and the war
which one man endured. If the student wants to read real fiction, try
one of the other million books available on the subject.

War is
always hell, dying is the easy part, surviving it is harder.

As luck would have it, Vlad (as he likes to be called) is a talented photographer and writer. Somehow he manages to keep a journal and take pictures during his entire tour of duty. Now he shares the pictures with us. Plain pictures of grim, haunted young men. Men who will never go home. Men who will die within hours of being photographed. Men resting briefly before the next battle or ambush. The book is built around these photographs, with accompanying text that is simple and spare.

Vlad serves his time, but really, he never comes home. In his spare, simple writing, his consciousness wanders back and forth between "home" and Afghanistan, never at peace. For him, only the war experience is real. The only people he can really feel at home with are Afghan veterans, and--interestingly--veterans of Viet Nam.

Afghanistan is not a sentimental book. It is a simple, plain-spoken account of a very bad time. It is a powerful statement about war, all war, yet it does not lecture the reader. It is not a book you enjoy, but it will make a deep impression on you. It is exquisite photo-journalism. I recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber

After his conscription, Vladislav went to basic and airborne training, where by his description the training was wholeheartedly inadequate to the task at hand. But then, armies can train basic trainees in the very basics of soldiering but they can never fully prepare them for the realities that lay ahead when facing actual combat. Of note is the fact that he and his fellow trainees spent a lot of time on the airborne training only to never use it in Afghanistan.

Armed with this most minimal of training, Vladislav and his fellow basic training graduates headed off for Afghanistan. Landing in Kabul he saw the first of many dichotomies where the people of Afghanistan attempted to continue to live their lives the best they could despite rocket attacks and a constant shifting between the Afghanistan government's forces and the Mujahadeen. To add to his already cumbersome load of trying to learn how to survive in combat, he was also immediately picked out to be a minesweeper, the job that few soldiers of any army wants to have.

Vladislav goes on to tell us of the many strife's and hardships that both he and his fellow soldiers endured and some which who did not survive. I found the style in which he told his story to be quite compelling as he tells it with a great depth of emotion to include areas where he seems to almost be in a dream/nightmare state where in one paragraph he's home, he's made it and in the next paragraph he's still in Afghanistan running for his life or attempting to save a friends life.

Of interest is how for quite some time at the beginning of this war the Soviet people were not told what was happening and why young soldiers were coming home in zinc coffins. To us, as Americans, it would seem unthinkable for our government to commit so many assets to a combat action without telling the general populace. To think that the USSR attempted to do is almost inconceivable.

Overall this is a story in pictures and words that is very telling of the experiences young men go through in war and the author deserves high praise for bringing it to print and those of us fortunate to have read it! I myself am in the Army and I found that I learned a great deal from this person that today I call a friend but back in my early days in the Army I was told he and his fellow soldiers were my enemy, thank God that's a war that never happened. I hope for him today that the demons of this war do not still haunt him for he and his fellow Afghansti have seen enough demons!

I highly recommend this book to any and all for it will certainly enrich your knowledge of the Soviet Afghan war and bring you in touch with the author who a truly honorable man who when he was but a mere teenager was forced to grow old before his time. {ssintrepid}

Tamarov describes the history--official and unofficial--behind the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, training prior to deployment, and the four types of military action that took place there. Weapons are also described, and there are also photographs of unexploded mines, minesweepers at work, and many photographs of the other young men who served with Tamarov.

The one thing that struck me over and over again as I read this book was the word "WASTE." The photographs of the young soldiers who never returned home stand as a monument to the utter ridiculous waste that occurred under the name "Afghanistan War." What difference did it make to the world or humankind? Has anything changed as a result? Did the world improve immeasurably or even measurably for that matter? The answer to those questions is a single, loud resounding 'NO'. And the only message that can be drawn from this book is the utter futility and madness of war. I would like to commend the author for creating a memorial through his marvellous photographs for the men who seem to be destined just to become empty statistics. The young men memorialized in Tamorov's photographs did not belong in Afghanistan, and neither did they deserve to die. I am glad that someone was there to record their short lives before they were stolen away forever--displacedhuman

KINGDOM OF MAKE-BELIEVE is an exciting thriller that paints a picture of Thailand much different from that of The King and I. The story line is filled with non-stop action, graphic details of the country, and an intriguing allure that will hook readers of exotic thrillers. Though the climax pales compared to the excellence of the rest of the novel, it remains an overall good ending. Anyone who takes pleasure in visiting a different lifestyle should read Dean Barrett's reverent but genuine portrayal of another world.

Harriet Klausner