ET Books

Tintin finds a briefcase in the ark. He returns it to its owner Professor Janus. The scholar will soon travel to Soldavia to study artifacts including the Royal Scepter, which must be in the possession of the king at a yearly ceremony, in order for him to remain in power. As Tintin leaves the professor's apartment he notices that he has been photographed. As he tries to find out why, he stumbles on a plot to steal the scepter...

After The Black Island, which was mostly chase scenes and action, it was nice to see some mystery. The story here was fairly straightforward but the way in which it unfolded kept me guessing. For example we don't learn who is after the scepter until it has been stolen and Tintin is trying to find out how and why. This was a good little suspense mystery and up to quality of other books in the Tintin series.


If you are reading this to help learn French, Tintin comics are good for reading at a French 2 level. There are a lot of words that aren't basic vocabulary but it is still easy to follow the story because the writing and pictures tend to reinforce each other. The video can be a help in pronouncing but it raises the price so it might be better to buy several comics instead.

This is the last Tintin episode and perhaps the least-known. It was never finished, the edition in print collected from Herge's sketches and manuscripts left after his death. The publishers felt it would be unjust to have another artist finish it, and so left it in raw sketch form. The book is organized like a portfolio. The right half contains a sketchbook containing an exact reproduction of Herge's sketches, the left half containing a printed transcript for ease of reading the text (handwritten on the sketch). Were this book finished, it would in my opinion easily be the best Tintin adventure of all! The action moves along very smoothly, and it has a lot of funny moments starting from the very first page. A very witty adventure indeed!

However, even in its unfinished state Tintin Et L'Alph-Art is a fabulous adventure. I personally found the early sketches of this adventure to be extremely inspiring. For those of us familiar with Herge's masterful artwork in his finished adventures, the simplicity of these early sketches are refreshing as well as encouraging. I finished the book with a strong urge to start sketching and drawing. The book also allows you a rare insight into how Herge creates his work, starting with a simple sketch and refining it later. In the margins you see the various trials he plays with in coming up with names for people, places, and signs. The first 3 pages come in two versions, an early one and a more developed one, so you see the evolution of the story. Another page comes in two versions, and pages are frequently renumbered as he interjects new episodes in various places.

You should note that this edition is in French. Although I am aware there is an edition where the transcript side is printed in English, I was unable to find it. Nevertheless, having taken only 1 year of college-level French (and that was 15 years ago), I had little difficulty in understanding the story. The French used is not that difficult, and the difficult words are very similar to English so I had to refer to my pocket dictionary relatively infrequently.

Despite the rawness of the sketches, the story itself is rather well-developed and entertaining as well as containing the usual breathtaking action we came to expect in Tintin. An interesting feature is the reappearance in this story of nearly all the characters encountered in all the previous Tintins. Even the most minor of characters are not spared their appearance. It is as if Herge knew this adventure will be his last, and wanted to create a grand finale. After reading this, I just had to cry! First I cried for the loss of this great artist since there will be no more Tintins, and second, I cried for not being able to know the end of this story. Herge died ending this adventure abruptly on page 42, in the midst of serious action. Perhaps he never intended to let us know!

This brutal book offers a look at life for the lower classes and the non-citizens in Antiquity (Greece and Rome) and more specifically for women.
The picture is hallucinating: child abandonment, slavery and prostitution. For those classes life was a horrendous daily struggle for survival.

C. Salles's analysis of Ancient Greece is broadly based on Demosthenes's oration 'Against Neaera', where the orator exposes the itinerary of Neaera from an abandoned child over a slave girl to the wife of a Greek citizen.
The slave market was fabulously huge. The author quotes Strabo saying that at the Delos market 10000 slaves changed hands every day.

An anagram for ROMA is AMOR. The situation of the lower classes was not better. Even for the upper-class life was dangerous: emperor Caligula forced the wives of the Roman senators into prostitution.
For the huge majority of the population it was again a daily struggle for life. At a certain moment people were so desperate that they asked for the dead bodies of gladiators to be sold for consumption.

C. Salles shows us pregnantly that the affluence and pleasures of a tiny minority in Antiquity was built on the back of a multiple of slaves and exploited people.
The ideals of Ancient humanism were denied to the major part of humanity, which was left in a situation of absolute despair.

This book is a hallucinating portrait of an idealized world.
A must read.

I also recommend the works of Sarah Pomeroy and Bettina Eva Stumpp for their analysis of Ancient life.

For those who read the first work of Michel Coquet ( les Çakras L'anatomie occoult de l'homme), it's the continuation, explanatory.
Cesar Serpa Brasil

The first identifiable rulers of Toulouse and the surrounding countryside on the Frankish marches were Visigoths in the early 5th century. A hundred years later, Clovis conquered the region for the French. Then came the armies of Islam, and the hereditary counts of Toulouse became a bulwark of Christian Europe, with all the international political leverage that entailed. By the beginning of the 13th century, Toulouse, now virtually independent, also controlled Armagnac, Foix, Carcassonne, Narbonne, and much of Provence, and had become ancestors of both the kings of France and the Angevin kings of England. Heavily chronological in organization, this well-written volume outlines the successive rulers of Toulouse down to 1271, when Raymond VII's lack of male progeny and the death of his only daughter allowed Philip III to annex the wealthy county to the French crown. Genty provides numerous details for each individual profiled, which is especially useful in the early medieval period. It helps to read some French, of course, but basic data can be extracted without that facility. Descent charts are peculiarly French in style but are easy enough to use, and a brief bibliography will lead the reader to more in-depth histories and biographies -- in French, of course.

It is hard to believe this book was first published in 1974. Since that time our knowledge of these friendly sea mammals has increased quite markedly. As we re-visit this excellent series of books by the legendary Jacques Cousteau, however, we discover just how much he was ahead of his time. This man came to know more about the sea and it's creatures than any man ever did - and perhaps ever will, and this book is a shining example of that knowledge.

Packed with page after page covering all aspects of Dolphin life and behaviour, this book is as relevant today as it ever was. There is much here for anyone with an interest in these attractive creatures and I would suggest "no scuba diver's bookshelf is complete without a copy - so get one now whilst these last remaining stocks are still available.

As with all the books in this series, it is a good read.

NM

Gaston Bouthoul (1902) made a penetrating and engaging analysis of the "War Phenomena" through a accurate dissection its motivations, dynamic sociology, definitions, delimitations, morphology, "War between the primitive men", technical elements, demographic factors, economic effects, implications, causes, consequences and proposals.
It explores with his sharp and methodic intelligence and eloquence the fundamental basis that, eventually have led him to create the science of the War known as "Polemología".
Bouthoul intends to decipher the profound nature of the cyclic warlike cracklings that, between hesitating peaceful periods, constitute a historic constant that lessen the value the implicit rationality in the human being.
Lin Yutang stated once: "Is not the emotion and not the reason what it rules the world?"

I came across a copy in France. One of the most remarkable collection of photographs on Jain monuments and practices. Worth acquiring even if you don't know French.

J'ai lu ce livre dans version Portugaise, c'est un voyage fantastique au sujet de l'histoire de Juif, le début du voyage quand Abram avait des enfants du remorquage qui sont provenus deux civilisation l'arabe et Juif, le livre montre comme les Juifs était esclave d'Égyptiens et comme ils pourraient obtenir ses libérations.
Le livre essaie de décrire dans chaque moment que les Juifs n'étaient pas un mauvais gens et accumulation d'argent et pouvoir était une conséquence de beaucoup de voyage et exploration dans chaque contexte de l'histoire. Le livre explique cela sans argent des Juifs que Colombo pourrait n'eu pas découverte l'Américain, et Napoléon doit gagner la guerre
Le point puissant dans le livre est le paragraphe que Max Weber fait une discussion avec Karl Marks au sujet du capitalisme, dans coquille de la noix le livre est la meilleure chemin d'envisager au sujet de la vie de Juif et le leur traditions

Since this book came from its author's Doctoral Thesis accepted with Honor at the University of Paris, all its contents are based on French Foreign Ministry and French Navy Department official classified documents never released to the public before its publication as a book. At this moment, mid-2001,when freedom for religion,especially for the Christian Church,is a very hot topic indeed aimed at the Socialist Republic of VietNam from critics more or less "politicized" this book if read with a clear-minded,un-biased spirit might help the reader better understand this particular sensitive subject about religion freedom versus national sovereinty,and to some extent,to clarify another topic not less frequently discussed among oversea Vietnamese which is human right against social order and national security.