Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia's Afar Depression

Book Description

Over the past 25 years, a stream of fossil and artifact discoveries in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia has produced the longest single record of human ancestors in the world. Many of the fossils found in this region are the missing links leading to modern humans. This book chronicles the exploration of this unique desert area, focusing especially on the 1970s when the valley was mapped and many fossils and archeological sites were discovered. The author gives his personal account of the 25 years he spent researching the region.
As co-founder of the team that discovered Lucy, Jon Kalb has first-hand knowledge of the research that was involved in the findings of this region and of the intense rivalry that has accompanied those findings. He discusses the political drama of Ethiopia and the effects this chaos had on the Afar. This book covers the scientific discoveries of the area, the author's own explorations and findings, and the political struggles involved with these discoveries.

Customer Reviews:

Fresh View on Looking at Old Fossils.......2006-01-03

I thought all this time that seeking old fossil material in some hot dry place would be boring but this book took away that idea. Its really entertaining, besides being full of facts about the part of Africa where we might have started being human.
I would recommend it to any one who wants to chuckle and learn at the same time...

Stoned in Ethiopia!.......2002-11-08

Wow! If you like science, this book has it all. Kalb gives a serious accounting of plate tectonics, geology, anthropology, paleoanthropology and politics. Both the politics of Ethiopia and of hominid anthropology.
This is the second book that I have read where Don Johanson, discoverer of the Lucy fossil, is lambasted. I am beginning to believe that Johanson left alot of people in his wake, including Kalb, on his way to fame and fortune. Kalb even gives details of Johanson's marijuana smoking exploits. Scandalous!
It is Kalb who worked behind the scenes to elucidate the geology of the Afar region of Africa and set the stage for the advancement of many discoveries in the field of paleoanthropology. And he did it while dodging the bullets of a communist revolution! Kalb survives even though he is suspected of being a CIA operative planted in Ethiopia under the guise of his scientific mission. Kalb suspects that it was his falling out with Johanson that caused this little tidbit of doubt to be planted in the minds of the Ethiopian government. Kalb spends alot of effort over a few years fighting this charge, but he eventually loses and is expelled from Ethiopia.
Kalb's story includes his sometimes angst ridden dealings with the Ethiopian government, who it seems are caught in the middle of a struggle of competing groups to exert dominance over the rich fossil beds of the Afar triangle. The struggle is not just between competing organizations of American science, but also between the Americans and a French team that comes close to stealing the show.
The only flaw in the book is the way that Kalb weaves the recent history of Ethiopia into the book. That could have been a book in and of itself. Kalb is best when discussing geology and anthropology. The Ethiopian revolution and subsequent war with Somalia and Eritrea is distracting to the reader. Kalb's first hand journalist account of the struggles of the Ethiopian government is superb, but it would have stood on it's own. Kalb tried to write two books in one and almost pulled it off.
One of the reasons why I read this genre of books is that it always offers surprises. One of Kalb's characters, Doug Cramer, assists in creating a couple of interesting fireside stories. Cramer taught Anatomy at NYU medical school. As an alumnus of NYU medical school, I remember Cramer well. We used to call him "The Viking" for his looks and demeanor. Cramer used to tell us that he was a "pastist", and now, twenty-five years later I understand what he meant. I am sure that Kalb could easily have written a book solely dealing with Cramer's antics.
This is a must read for any armchair paleoanthropologists like myself. I am now inspired to read "Lucy" again given all the information I have about Johanson. The book was a page turner for me and I think that you will enjoy it.
Thank you, Jon Kalb, for your contribution to paleoanthropology. I hope that you can get back to Ethiopia to make some of the discoveries that you say will eventually be unearth there.

Down and dirty with J Kalb.......2001-12-12

The geology is a bit daunting, but the book is quite readable for anyone with a smattering of earth science background.

The inside poop on competing researchers is funny as hell. Kalb shows SOME restraint in detailing Johanson's efforts to block his (Kalb's) access to the Afar, more restraint than was called for if Kalb's claims are true...

Insights into the politics and history of Ethiopia abound.

Great stuff overall. Well written.

Fascinating reading!.......2001-09-15

Kalb takes a subject which could be as dry as old bones in a desert and makes it living and fresh. He combines real life drama with an informative tour of the competitive worlds of geology and anthropology. A fellow member of the Texas Coalition of Authors told me, "He is the personification of Indiana Jones."

I have read many books and many soon become a weariness of the flesh (Ecclesiastes 12:12) but not this one. It is fascinating reading; informative and entertaining.

A Truly Superior Book about Doing Science........2001-05-08

This is a book about exploring for humanoid fossils in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia from 1967 to 1976 during the overthrow of the Haile Selassie government and the beginning of the Derg--Mengistu Marxist regime. Rare indeed is the book that gives a good sense of the ambience along with immense readability. It is mostly about the geology and anthropology of the Ethiopian Rift Valley, but anyone interested in science will find this book fascinating because it is really a story about "doing" science: the fun, the people, the jealousies, ambitions, dirty pool, and and an exceedingly fine discussion of why the digging and excitement occurs in Ethiopia.

This book must have caused its publishers agonies of indecision. It doesn't fit usual categories: It is a personal memoir; an account of Ethiopian history; an overview of the geology of the rift valleys and a thorough discussion of the activities of anthropologists searching for human ancestors along with explanations of how they know where to look for these goodies. the whole thing is interspersed with amusing and exciting anecdotes. The geology part of this book is as fascinating as anything you are likely to read. Partly this is because the Afar Triangle is such a formidable place, parts of which are among the lowest and hottest areas on earth. But don't think that this is a geology text book--far from it. I could say a whole lot more in favor of this book, but you get the idea that I think it is superior--well worth a good look.

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Paleontology and Politics

The Neandertals: Of Skeletons, Scientists, and Scandal
Erik Trinkaus
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Physical | Anthropology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Evolution | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Neandertal Enigma : Solving the Mystery of Modern Human Origins

The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success, and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives

Extinct Humans

In Search of the Neanderthals: Solving the Puzzle of Human Origins

Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors

ASIN: 0679732993
Release Date: 1994-03-15

Amazon.com

As a fierce debate rages around the question of whether Neanderthals are the ancestors of modern people, Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman begin their book by taking us back to 1856, when the first known remains of a Neanderthal were found in Germany. The authors provide a fascinating history of the science surrounding these mysterious people and the legends that have grown up around them. The Neandertals (most scientists have dropped the H from the name, but popular culture has not yet followed suit) is rich with stories and characters. It reveals much of what we know about the prehistoric past (the last Neanderthal probably died 25,000 years ago), as well as how contemporary biases influence the way we interpret this history.

Book Description

To one nineteenth-century scholar, their fierce, ridged brows were evidence of a "moral darkness" that set them irrevocably apart from human beings. Some commentators accused them of cannibalism. Yet by the 1970s the Neandertals were being hailed as "the first flower people" and praised for their apparent compassion and religious piety.

The story of how scientists could come to such divergent conclusions about a set of bones unearthed in Germany in 1856 unfolds with irresistible detail in this enthralling book. Even as The Neandertals assesses the identity, kinship, and character of our possible ancestors, it casts a wry eye on the modern Homo sapiens who have embraced or disavowed them and illuminates the peculiar way in which even science is shaped by human needs and biases.

Customer Reviews:

Paleontology and Politics.......1999-04-15

This is a fascinating and very well-written account of the discovery of the first Neandertal skeletons, and the shock waves they caused (and are still causing) throughout science.

The Victorian mania for collecting, cataloging and naming natural specimens led to the formulation of the Great Tree of Life, or Chain of Being, arranged from the lowliest organisms in an orderly progression up to "the pinnacle of creation, Man" -- or more accurately, white Anglo-Saxon Englishmen in waist-coats.

The discovery of proto-human remains in Germany in 1856 threw this 'orderliness' of nature into disarray. Did not The Bible state that everything was created all-at-once in perfect harmony? How then could an obviously human skeleton -- but equally obviously not that of a modern Englishman -- have come to rest in the soil beneath their feet?

The ripples from these discoveries were to penetrate the farthest reaches of scientific endeavor, as man began to comprehend geologic time (as opposed to the Biblical timeframe), repeated mass extinctions (as opposed to Christian creation myths) and mankind's own humble origins, starkly laid out on the table before them.

With the help of a certain Mr. Charles A. Darwin, whose own ideas on the mutability of species he had been harboring privately for 20 years, science was soon to face a new conception of itself, basing theory on evidence and logic rather than religious texts and teachings. It is a revolution which is still very much on-going today.

The authors are to be commended for making a potentially dry and technical subject come alive, with the intrigues, power struggles, vanity, hubris and anguish of the revolution ably depicted.

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My favorite Life Nature Library book

Early man (Illustrated library of nature : an encyclopedia of natural history encompassing all aspects of nature and wildlife)
F. Clark Howell
Manufacturer: H.S. Stuttman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

History | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books
General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books
Prehistory | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006YSJEY

Customer Reviews:

My favorite Life Nature Library book.......2002-02-13

Actually the version of Early Man I'm reviewing is the 1968 revised edition. Originally published in 1965 (and apparently the book continued to be revised in 1981), this is a very interesting, albeit very outdated book about prehistoric Man. This book really has some very deep nostalgic value for me as it's been with me since I was a little kid, my parents found a used copy of this book in 1979, and when I got a hold of the book, I absolutely loved the photos in it. One of my favorites have been the front cover which is the skull of a Neandrathal Man, not to mention the picture inside the book of Laugerie Basse in France which is a hanging cliff, and I just dig the buildings under the cliffs, including a restaurant. Laugerie Basse happened to be an area where Cro-Magnon Man inhabited. In this book you get plenty of illustrations of bones, skulls, artifacts, caves, tools, spears made from rocks, and so much more. I give it a very high rating because to this day, I still dig the pictures. Back when I was a kid I was interested in how Man lived in prehistoric time, and this book really satisfied my desire. Of course the book is grossly outdated, but if you don't mind that and curious about prehistoric Man, try this book.

Early Man: As Depicted by Leading Authorities at the International Symposium, the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, March 1937 (Essay Index Reprint Series)

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Early Man: As Depicted by Leading Authorities at the International Symposium, the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, March 1937 (Essay Index Reprint Series)
International Symposium on Early Man Academy of Natural Sciences of ph
Manufacturer: Ayer Co Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Eugène Dubois and the Ape-Man from Java: The History of the First `Missing Link' and Its Discoverer

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Eugène Dubois and the Ape-Man from Java: The History of the First `Missing Link' and Its Discoverer
L.T. Theunissen
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Indonesia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History & Theory | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Reference | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

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ASIN: 1556080816

The Evolution of Spatial Competence (Illinois Studies in Communication)

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The Evolution of Spatial Competence (Illinois Studies in Communication)
Thomas Wynn
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Developmental Psychology | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 025206030X

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Fossil History of Man
M. H. Day
Manufacturer: Carolina Biological Supply Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 031727340X

Fossil man in China: An exhibition in commemoration of the centenary of the Urban Council (1883-1983) and the opening of the new temporary Hong Kong Museum of History

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Fossil man in China: An exhibition in commemoration of the centenary of the Urban Council (1883-1983) and the opening of the new temporary Hong Kong Museum of History

Manufacturer: Urban Council
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

All Chinese Books | Chinese | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 9627039063

The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man; The Evolution Debate, 1813-1870 (Volume VIII)

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The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man; The Evolution Debate, 1813-1870 (Volume VIII)
Charles Lyell
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books

Principles of Geology (Penguin Classics)

ASIN: 0415289300

Book Description

This work includes his prediction that if our nearest relatives are great apes, then the places to look for human fossils will be central Africa and Indonesia.

A GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN IN THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY).

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A GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN IN THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY).

Manufacturer: B
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HLVI94

Book Description

This book has grown out of a need to teach fundamental, practical aspects of structural geology to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the earth sciences and they have written to provide a basic text at undergraduate university level. We have tried to assemble a comprehensive account of such basic techniques as could be the foundation of a practical and theoretical course in the analysis of tectonic structures, stress and strain. Volume 1 covers the principles of deformation, and Volume 2 applies these principles specifically to the analysis of folds and fractures.

Key Features
* Provides a unique practical introduction to structural geology for students
* Uses over 220 clear line figures
* Lavishly illustrated throughout with 107 high quality photographs showing features of naturally deformed rocks over a range of scaleaerial photographs, field photographs and photomicrographs
* Starts each session with the formulation of a problem and presentation of any essential background or necessary mathematical techniques
* Gives graded problems with solutions fully discussed in the text drawing out key features of the methods used
* Provides 22 working diagrams for use is problem solving

Customer Reviews:

Structural Geologists, Buy This Book!.......2002-05-17

Strain is the crux of structural geology. This is a great book for the application of strain theory to rocks. Gives techniques for strain measurement in the field as well as classroom activities during teaching. Get it!

Customer Reviews:

A terribly distorted version.......2005-05-10

On my scale of 10, I gave this book a rating as high as one (1) for the author's effort in searching for material and referencing it in extensive notes. As a history of the times, it rates a zero (0).
The author might have written the objectives of his book as:
"America did an abomination by building the atom bomb and killing brutally without compassion thousands of totally innocent Japanese. The instigator of this horror, American General Leslie Groves,had only one objective: to gain power over the most people he could, control them and maintain that control regardless of laws or ethics or safety. He recklessly endangered the entire planet and all of American culture solely for his own greed for power."
Then the author wrote the book in propagandese with distorting adjectives and selection of events to convince a reader that the author's view of "history" was The Truth .

The depiction of Groves as a monster begins early in the book.
"Groves's ascendance, his early success at forging a cooperative venture among government, military, and corporate entities, signaled a broader campaign of expansion and control, into labor relations, into social relations, even into language. This last area is perhaps the most surprising and significant example of the District's imperial tendencies. One of its earliest manifestations was the naming of the program."
A full page is then devoted to explaining that the choice of "Manhattan" for the organization was not simply to avoid hinting at its purpose. "For him [Groves], the single most important concern lay with "security" (Groves's term subsuming secrecy and control of information), and he envisioned language as a potent weapon for duplicity."
The portrayal of Groves as the supreme tyrant continues throughout the book. General Groves as a hard driving decision maker who forced the accomplishment of an almost impossible job does not appear. And the reasons such a drive was felt necessary by all of us, the dread of Germany's building a nuclear bomb before we could and then the horror of the continuing slaughters of both US and Japanese forces in the jungles of the South Pacific and the prospect of worse to come with invasion, was ignored totally.

Two examples of the writer's distortions represent his propagandizing technique:
"New workers entering these factories found them to be confusing and sometimes terrifying warrens of piping, walls of analog dials, valves, and knobs, marked with Bakelite labels in the arcane language of the engineer."
Big,yes; terrifying, no. New workers did not wander into a building without orientation and explanation of where he or she was to work, go to the bathroom, eat. What's confusing? Any new job for the first day or so. But of course walls of stuff with Bakelite labels must be dangerous, especially in arcane language with words like "open" and "closed" and "pressure" and "temperature".
The second example of such writing tries to use a picture of a control room, in which I worked at one time, to show manipulation by the tyrannical Manhattan Engineer District. Here is Hales' description of the picture as he tries to show distortions created by the Manhattan District use of language: [The first sentence refers to a different picture taken for record at a trailer park at Oak Ridge.]
"This particular photograph is, itself, a document that reinforces the District's grammar -- though the way this grammar is imbedded in visual form is clearer in another equally prosaic picture, also made by Du Pont's official site photographer, Ed Westcott, to illustrate the workings of the K-25 master control room (Fig. 36). [Du Pont was not one of the Oak Ridge contractors, but maybe Westcott was delegated to make pictures of Oak Ridge for the record. I won't argue the point.]
"Reading the photograph as a distinct document, one can recognize the District's extension of written grammar into visual grammar. Yet the brilliance of the method manifests itself in the way the picture seems not to tell but to show . Even though, to a careful eye, it's an obviously managed, set-up picture, still the impression persists that the result is natural. The obsessional orderliness of the workplace seems incontrovertible. It seems simply to show the control desk with its banks of switches and the supervisor's desk with its paperwork, with everything lined up parallel and neatly diagonal to the walls filled with their workstation graph-paper plotters and their own cruciform arrangements of gleaming lights. The people too, are nicely symmetrical -- two men, two women; two engrossed in tasks, two awaiting orders. The desks are orderly, reassuringly so. Underneath the details is a message. Everything's under control in the control room."
The following three paragraphs add more suppositions to the explanation of the evil and manipulative intent of this photograph. "... as a staff photographer following orders." "Westcott has manipulated the circumstances..." "... bland, even lighting." "Even Westcott's work isn't really his." and more and more.
Then the long paragraph with the ridiculous clincher at the end:
"Behind Westcott's professionalism lies the repertoire of conventions he learned as he mastered the job of staff photographer. So also with the conventions learned by the architect-engineers of the master control room and transmitted to their plans: that the control room should have even, revealing lighting, and that such lighting came best from multiple panels in the ceiling, that the plotters for each K-25 cubicle should properly be lined up in even rows where they could be easily seen ."
That's nice: clear statements of the requirements for an informative photograph and a good control room. Then Hales continues in the same paragraph:
"(This arrangement is orderly, but it isn't necessarily intelligent; looking at the control panel of the Hanford pile for the first time in the fall of 1991, I was struck with an immediate and palpable anxiety, for each of the control stations looked like each of the others -- in a crisis, how could the operators, assured by the law of comparmentalization that they would never know the logic that lay beneath the dials, distinguish between one dial and the next in a row of some too identical dials? Equally so with the dials and plotters in this master control room.)"
Hales ascribes ignorance of their job to the operators of the Hanford works and lack of intelligence to the designers of the control rooms because he never worked in a control room, didn't know anything about it, and doesn't know what he is talking about .
I worked the K-25 control room in this picture. To work there I had to know the meaning of each line on the graphs and each light; the "indistinguishable dials and plotters" were arranged in exactly the order in which material passed from one "cubicle" to the next so the process details were clear and easy to see.
All this and more to pretend that the Corps of Engineers had invented a "new grammar" to control the thinking of their employees!
I have a picture taken by my beloved father of my brother and me on our little wagon when we were five and three. Here is my guess at Hale's probable description of my memorial of fun on the little red wagon.
"These two small children, both apparently male, are obviously terrified of the photographer. This fear is easily apparent to the careful observer from the way their mouths are partly open and their eyes are wide and staring at the camera. The photograph must have been staged in an attempt to record the likenesses of the children in case of accident. Obviously the older boy was forced on top of the younger one in the tiny wagon which must have been so small as to make injury to at least one of them likely. Such an injury may have made him amenable to the enforced duties he performed years by later making material for the atomic bomb."

At times tedious.......2002-12-01

I found some sections of this book fascinating, and others quite slow and tedious, hence the three star rating.

Be prepared: this is not quick reading!

I like how this book glorifies no one. It also talks about many "forgotten" victims of the Manhattan PRoject; those who were evicted from their property, the "underclass" workers, those who lived near Alamogordo and sufferred from nuclear fallout. I learned information about Gen. Groves and how he oversaw the project. It spoke also about the scientists, but not just about the scientists. This isn't a book about the making of the bomb; it's a book about the culture. At times it was slow---I skimmed about 100 pages at the beginning, which I very rarely do--- but there should be something for you in this book if you're interested enough in the topic to read this review! I found especially interesting the medical testing (or lack thereof), the radiation safety protoocols (or lack thereof) and the fallout (literal and sociological) of the Alamogordo test. These areas were fascinating to me. Also, while I already knew about Feynman's battle with the censors, it's fun to read again!

Loaded With Information.......2000-06-04

We are constantly researching the Manhattan Project in an effort to locate surviving veterans. Mr. Hales' account of war-time life at Los Alamos, NM, Oak Ridge, TN, and Hanford, WA is first rate. I recommend it highly to anyone yearning for a full understanding of the circumstances surrounding the development of the atomic bomb. Michael Vickio, Exec. Dir. .............

a powerful and deeply researched history of the bomb.......1999-11-03

Beautifully written and by turns restrained and emotionally charged, this moral history of the Manhattan Project takes on what the others never mention-- all the smaller worlds created, destroyed or utterly changed as we entered the atomic age. Engrossing, packed with information spirited out of classified archives or found in the bottom of boxes, this book deserves the prizes it has won. Even the pictures are striking and remain on my mind long after I have closed the book.

The single best book on the Manhattan Project.......1998-12-29

I have read literally a dozen or more books about the atomic projects both in the United States and Germany. Unlike most books on the subject, Atomic Spaces, glorifies no one. It tells the story like it really was. It goes into the social, economic, racial, and moral cost of the project. It puts into perspective the relationship between the military, the government, big buisness, and the American people for this last half of the twentieth century. In no uncertain terms it demonstrates the true cost of entering the atomic age.

Although the outcome was "successful," I wonder if the true price of the atomic age was worth it? It certainly came with a high price tag, much, much more than money.

This book is a must read in order to see the real Manhattan Project and not the glorified picture presented by so many other authors. This is a really great book, about a really great endeavour, done by the average man with his usual weakness.

Average customer rating:
Atomic Spaces. Living on the Manhattan Project.
Peter Bacon. HALES
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQD6GA

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Atomic Spaces: Living On The Manhattan Project
PETER BACON. HALES
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OPTWWI

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helpful

ESSENTIAL READING

The Tale of Genji: A Reader's Guide (Reader's Guide (Tuttle Publishing))
William J. Puette
Manufacturer: Tuttle Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Family Saga | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Asian | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

The Tale of Genji

The Tale of Genji (Dover Thrift Editions)

The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (Kodansha Globe)

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (Landmarks of World Literature (New))

ASIN: 0804833311

Customer Reviews:

helpful.......2002-01-09

This book was writen as a companion to two earlier translations. However it serves well to provide background and chapter summaries for the Royall Tyler translation which has just become available.

ESSENTIAL READING.......1999-07-09

A god-send "map" of sorts through the galaxy of characters and events in Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji." I only wish Puette had continued with detailed reviews after Chapter 9. Otherwise, an exellent guide to a wonderful, absorbing novel.

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