Outstanding Historical Novel Marred Only By Pedestrian Prose
359796
A Roman history professor recently made the bold statement that reading one of Colleen McCullough's historical novels of Rome would provide me with more understanding of Roman history during the period of the Revolution than listening to any fifty of his lectures.  I must admit I was surprised, having always associated the author with melodramatic period romances, such as "The Thornbirds."  Nonetheless, even discounting for dramatic exaggeration on the part of the professor, there is little doubt that Ms. McCullough has lovingly and lavishly endowed this novel with all the historical accuracy, research and detail that could be demanded of her subject, and should in large part satisfy even the most rigorous of historical readers, bringing the Republic during the crucial period of Marius' consulships to life.  Not only are all the major political participants of this period clearly portrayed, but the day to day quality of life is revealed in detail, from the tribal customs of the Cimbri and Tuetones, the impoverishment of the Subura, to the varying struggles of Roman women to establish a viable and meaningful role for themselves within the male-dominated society of Rome.  This is a tale as much about personal triumphs and tragedies as it is about the larger stage of military and political intrigue and events, including both the petty and the grandiose, and often poignantly rendered.  It is the beginning of an ongoing and evolving epic series that should appeal to a broad audience that should include historians, fans of historical fiction, or even the more literary and historically minded readers of fantasy.  For its depiction and recreation of Roman society and history I cannot commend it more highly, and the maps, personally-drawn portraits of some of the characters, and the almost 150 page glossary and guide to pronunciation, with its translation of the cognomenative meaning, is a delight, especially for those of us intrigued with word play and derivation.
However, as other reviewers have accurately noted---"jeffergray," "jaxjin" and "a reader from Marietta"---Ms. McCullough's prose does not always rise to the epic level of her subject, more workman-like than accomplished, often somewhat stilted, and the author's writing here would never by described as stylish or particularly masterful in narrative flow.  Further, the reader should be prepared during the first hundred pages of the novel for the necessary establishment of background and events that enervate somewhat the opening pages of the narrative.  And, as already pointed out by one of the reviewers above, the repeated use of letters to provide background or description of events quickly becomes a recognizable artifice far from elegant in its use.  Nonetheless, the author's prose is written with the requisite craftsmanship and skill to serve and support her story, and I suspect that only the more literary-minded among us will notice the at times stiff or awkward composition, most quickly coming to ignore or overlook her sentence construction compared to the obvious captivation and compelling quality of her story.
Four more novels continue the history begun here---"The Grass Crown," "Fortune's Favorites," "Caesar's Women," and "Caesar"---and suspicion exists that the author will continue the series up to and including the ascension of Octavion and the start of the Principate.  If so, "The Masters of Rome" series will provide an outstanding and more historically accurate segue into Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God," a true masterpiece of historical fiction, far more consummately written if, based as it is upon Suetonius' delightful, titillating but often spurious "Lives of the Twelve Caesars," less factual accounting of the reigns of the Julio-Claudians.  Any even with a remote interest in Roman history should be enthralled and delighted.
1927466
This novel was a great find, as it has excellent writing with fully fleshed out characters. The author has taken great care to make a speculative world that is very believable while making a statement about the nature of and tension between community interdependence and individual freedom.

My favorite part of this book was the prose, sentences like "Frigid air coursed over me like a pent-up river, the hardened flecks of snow like so many grains of wind-enraged sand" really set the tone of the desolation of the world, the coldness and the hardness, and the anger that seems to seep through everyone and everything made hard through war, politics and simply survival.

I would have liked more descriptions of the setting; I felt like the environment could have been more of a character than it was. But this is a novel about "history," so perhaps it's understandable that the author spends more time unfolding the events of this world to the reader.

Readers of historical fiction and speculative should really enjoy this book!
3230206
I have to confess to reading this novel partly out of guilt, since I kept coming across references to it elsewhere. While I did enjoy it, it was largely this literary conscience that kept me going. It is indeed a superb novel, and you can read the other reviews to see why, but it is very slow and I think I'm not the only one who found it quite a slog, or got frustrated from time to time by Clarissa's unspeakable virtuousness (although her distraught state after the rape is portrayed most movingly).
As a comparison, read Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses, one of my favourite novels and one which makes one wonder why the epistolary form was abandoned. A beautifully structured, enthralling study of sexual intrigue in eighteenth-century France, it is far more exciting and the characterisation is extraordinary, exploring both good and vicious characters with great depth and achieving the rare feat of making characters at both ends of the scale human, realistic and sympathetic. One of the main differences, apart from the driven plot of Les Liaisons against the thoughtful consideration of what in Clarissa is, classically, basically an expansion of one incident, is that Laclos explored human depravity with such rigorous honesty and fascinated sympathy that he caused a great scandal and got himself banned; Richardson, on the other hand, always had an eye out for the moral lesson (he gives everyone their just deserts at the end in quite a scrupulous manner) and to my mind his portrayal of human nature is less believable, and certainly less interesting. Clarissa would have been far more likeable for a few faults (even Melanie in Gone with the Wind makes a sarcastic comment once), and the interaction with Lovelace would perhaps, I feel, have been deeper and more tragic if she had lowered her standards and communicated with him more.
Clarissa is a densely woven, lovingly detailed novel with a plot that can be summed up in one sentence, and I think that whether it appeals to you depends very much on whether or not this is to your taste. I certainly found it of great interest in relation to other literature and will no doubt dip into it again, but I couldn't face a re-read. One problem with boasting about having finished it is that even though it was much harder work than War and Peace (and twice as long), most people won't have heard of it!
3633953
I too read this book years ago, and remember it as a fabulous adventure and extremely well written. BUT...while I know it's fiction, I think it really sells one of history's most fascinating and inspiring characters  short. In this book Hatshepsut is reduced to a pretty stereotypical  scheming evil queen/stepmother-type. It's one interpretation of history I  suppose, but recent scholarship paints a more positive picture of her,  although a no less ambitious one. Please read Pauline Gedge's "Child  of the Morning," for a different fictional take. No Mara and Sheftu  maybe, but Senenmut gets a much better deal. Please note though, Gedge's  book, while certainly not overly violent or racy, is not a children's book,  although any teen that read "Mara" could certainly enjoy it.  Joyce Tyldesley also wrote an excellent history called "Hatshepsut:The  Female Pharoah," for those who want just the facts.
3237246
Hilary Mantel writes like a dream and invests in Tudor-court politics an essential believability that speaks brilliantly to her powers of imagination. She might have been a fly on the wall in actual conversations she has spun between Cromwell and Henry - exchanges that mix quotidian events of the pantry with events of great pitch and moment on the Continent - or, more magically, between Cromwell ("Cremuel") and Anne Boleyn, haughty, dismissive, conniving, and insecure for her inability to produce a male heir. This is more a political thriller than simply a historical novel that rehashes one of the most familiar episodes in English history. Yes, we know how this turns out, but we admire the way in which Mantel invests each participant with very specific stakes in particular outcomes and creates a narrative that simply hurtles forward.

I miss, however, the dreamy narrative character of the first volume, Wolf Hall, which to my eyes was enhanced by Mantel's use of the third-person singular "he," unmodified, to refer to Cromwell - a trope that mystified many readers who failed to fall into Mantel's particular rhythm. Here, either in deference to readers or editors, she is perfectly clear, repeatedly referring to "he, Cromwell, ... " rather than simply to "he" or "Cromwell," either of which would do the work without the odd stylization. The first volume also covered nearly 50 years of Cromwell's life, was packed widely varied locales and events, sharp observation, a sense of the full panoply of English life in the Tudor, one that breathed naturally and spaciously. Bring Up the Bodies, on the other hand, unfolds in a compressed nine-month timeframe, in the suffocatingly claustrophobic atmosphere of Henry's royal court, thickly populated by credibly wrought historical personages - the only pure creation is Cromwell's entertaining French henchman, Christophe - and all fed by lies, rumor, innuendo, and stiletto dialogue.

In this chapter of Mantel's Cromwelliad, Master Secretary comes off significantly less sympathetically - colder, more calculating (if that can even be imagined), and more self-interested (above all in staying afloat) - than in the first novel. His essential humanity, however, repeatedly surfaces, often in the form of an enduring loyalty to the dead Wolsey, Cromwell's beloved sponsor and mentor, and one of two largely absent figures who hovers over the proceedings. The other, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and Cromwell's most ardent foe, elicits a different side of Cromwell altogether. Gardiner spends most of this story in France in an ambassadorial capacity but is perfectly apprised of Cromwell's doings and from afar works continually to undermine his designs, just as Cromwell works to contain Gardiner's influence at court and among the friends of Catherine, the first of Henry's deposed queens, who have allied with Cromwell against the Boleyns.

Yet for all the delights of Mantel's characterization and dialogue (and speculation about what actually happened, for we shall never know), the story seemed at times somewhat cluttered and discursive. I recognize this perception is almost certainly partly due to my American provincialism in failing to keep distinctions absolutely clear: every principal character except the occasional commoner has at least three, and often more, ways to be named - "Thomas Howard" (one of many, many "Thomases"), "Howard," "Norfolk," "Lord High Steward" - and, at times, keeping all the personalities straight made my head spin. (Cromwell the butcher's son also has many titles, but we always know where he is, as the novel's point of view is uniformly Cromwellian. Is he in every scene? Without going back to check, I believe so.) Thankfully, Mantel (or the publisher) provides a dramatis personae, to which I often referred.

But his is a dismissable carp: this is a wonderful follow-up to Wolf Hall that whets the appetite for a third and final installment of the Cromwell Saga. It cannot come too soon.
4007125
This is easily the most absorbing history book I have ever read.  Price is a very good writer; furthermore his narrative is thoroughly researched, detached and unbiased, and optimistic.  Between the English and the natives Price doesn't take sides or pass judgement, which I find gratifying as I tend strongly to resist any interpretation of history, even in times of violence and atrocity, that sees it even somewhat in terms of black and white, the good guys against the bad.  It just doesn't work that way.  If there are any bad guys for Price, they are only the inept early leaders at Jamestown, whose deadly incompetence John Smith was only sometimes able to neutralize.

Far more than only the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, this history covers the narrow survival of the early colony at Jamestown, the subtleties of the diplomacy and military stand-offs with the native tribes, the broader scope of diplomatic relations between the European powers of the day, the travels of several of the Powhatans to London, the arrival of the first African slaves to Virginia, the natives' too-late (and ultimately self-destructive) effort to force the colonists out through the massacre of 1622, and the early emergence of a distinctly American character in the colonists by their second or third decade in the New World.

Don't pass this one by!  Almost two centuries of lesser-known, but disticntly American history took place before the Revolutionary War.  Right from the start, as personified in the extraordinary John Smith, the settlers had a unique outlook and lifestyle that constituted the beginnings of American character and culture.  Price communicates all of it with a novelists' skill.
2654127
All for Nothing is a masterpiece of memory and lyrical prose. Examining a few days at the end of World War II, today's reader knows that East Prussia will soon be invaded and devastated by Soviet troops. But the characters in the novel go on with their static lives of novels and potatoes, unable to comprehend what is happening around them. The action builds slowly in this novel (and is often dispatched in a sentence), with the focus on meticulous and unsparing examination of characters. Except perhaps for young Peter, there are no heroes in this book (though one character does something surprisingly heroic). Each character is viewed from many perspective and each is flawed. Yet even the ridiculous and pedantic Nazi is granted a few bits of humanity, while the fleeing Jew is not treated to the sentimental cliches common in popular literature about the Holocaust: he too is a nuanced character. Kempowski is a master manipulator of tone, letting the reader succumb to pathos and then sneakily subverting it in the next sentence. Readers must make up their own minds about whom to trust, and whom to believe. One of the best novels I've read in a year. Brilliant.
1836890
The Virginian is a historical novel, as it self-identifies immediately, defining "any narrative which presents faithfully a day and a generation" as "of necessity historical."  The Virginian is also a romance and a western (the original western), set in Wyoming in the late 19th Century.

Surprisingly for the genesis of all westerns, The Virginian is light on action.  It very much exists in its beautiful, lonely world.  It was a time and place in which human interaction could be few and far between and people (the titular Virginian most of all) did not waste words.  But that only makes dialogue all the more satisfying.  The debates on literature between the Virginian and Molly are a great treat.  In particular they emphasize just how wide a cultural gap exists between the roughhewn cow-puncher from a farming family in southern Appalachia and the refined schoolmarm from a good family in New England.  It is just unfortunate that I am not literate enough to fully appreciate all of the allusions.

The chapter just before the hanging is one of the best in the book.  It wonderfully captures the loneliness of the high plains, the tension of the situation, and the decidedly odd nature of the hanging.  The entire final third of the book is about as pitch perfect as a novel gets.

The Virginian is without a doubt a product of the 19th Century.  The characters often partake in the annoying habit of labeling positive qualities as masculine and negative qualities as feminine.  The subtlety regarding matters touching on sex or violence can approach incomprehensibility, even to a careful reader.  But it can also be refreshing to the reader used to modern novels (Lord knows subtlety is in short supply these days).  The male characters are not bound by our odd, contemporary inability to express beauty and thus avoid the stilted language of today.  Themes of gender interaction and good and evil can be dealt with unapologetically.  Wister is not shy about the (smoothly integrated) insertion of philosophical musing, either.

One more quick, minor gripe: Wister adopts the annoying, all-too-common practice of heavily overusing apostrophes when writing an Appalachian dialect (that of the titular Virginian).  The Virginian's diction and enunciation is also at odds with that which I am familiar with as a native of western North Carolina and resident of southwestern Virginia.

I read the Kindle version of The Virginian offered free through Amazon.  There are a handful of typographical errors, but not enough to be overly distracting and none that cause confusion.  It only includes the foreword from the author and no afterword.  I also own an old Educator Classic Library edition from 1968.  It omits the foreword, but contains numerous added illustrations and helpful definitions and explanations throughout the text (directly next to the relevant text in the margin so they do not affect readability like a footnote or endnote would).  It also contains a "backword" with helpful information about Wister and the (surprisingly brief) romantic era of the cattle business.
3189891
As a lifelong student and fan of Roman history, I enthusiastically dive into every Colleen McCullough "Masters of Rome" novel, only to come up floundering and gasping for air after a few dozen pages.  "Caesar," which is in most respects the climax of the series, is no exception: A grand story with riveting characters, expertly plotted, but weighed down by some of the worst prose this side of "it was a dark and stormy night." McCullough doesn't seem to think normal rules of fiction writing apply to her.  Long, dense paragraphs of exposition containing dozens of names and mountains of historical minutia serve no real purpose other than to show off the depths of her research (which is considerable, although she still gets odd details wrong-- i.e. references to a "gold denarius" [the denarius was strictly a silver coin; a gold piece was termed an "aureus"] or Roman officers in "leather armor" [there is no evidence Roman armor was made of anything but iron or bronze]).  Even more irritating are long passages of extremly verbose dialogue that start and stop with no indication of setting-- i.e. we have no idea where her characters are or what they are doing when they speak these words.  Other reviewers praise her battle scenes. I can't imagine why, since the actual battles are given only the most perfunctory treatment, although the groundwork for each clash is meticlulously laid.  She describes each battle in a sterile, academic fashion. Never do you experience the actual blood, sweat, grime, the horrendous physical exertion, the searing pain, the awful disorientation, the screams, and the stink of hand-to-hand combat. This is particularly true of the last great battle, Pharsalus-- the maneuvers leading up to the clash take up perhaps 50 pages, while the actual battle itself occupies two paragraphs. Still, what McCullough lacks as a wordsmith, she makes up for with strong plotting and characterization. Caesar, as been noted elsewhere, comes off as too perfect an embodiement of all the Roman virtues, but his allies and enemies-- studly Anthony, dynamic Curio, dogmatic Cato, longsuffering Cicero, and always the likeable, naively egotistical Pompey-- are all compelling and immensely human.  Of the women, Fulvia, Porcia and Servilia are all strikingly drawn and memorable.  So, yes, despite the hard work necessary to finish reading this novel, it ended up being (barely) worth the effort.  I will no doubt read the "October Horse," but only after taking a long breather and steeling myself for another tough slog.
1216639
This book is exceptionally readable and provides a good background for people who are interested in the Ottoman Empire.  The personalities of the major Sultans and Grand Viziers come through via Kinross's vivid descriptions and character analysis.  However, there are some major gaps in the work.

Kinross is at his strongest when describing the Ottoman advance into Europe, which ultimately ended with the second siege of Vienna.  Even as the Ottoman successes were rolled back by the European powers he is clearly in his element.  Much of what he has written regarding the Balkan campaigns and the rise of Balkan nationalism has relevance to the current conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.  Moreover, Kinross also does an admirable job of describing the major reform movements and internal battles of the Ottoman Empire, particularly after 1700.

However, there are major weaknesses in the work.  First, Kinross spends precious little time examining the Asian and African conquests by the Ottomans and the patterns of rule established in places like contemprary Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.  These are issues that anyone reading in the post 9/11 world would likely have found particularly interesting and relevant to understanding today's events.

Similarly, Kinross spends little time examining social institutions, especially the Caliphate that resided in Istanbul until its abolition by Ataturk.  Again, what happened with regard to Islamic belief in the Ottoman Days is a critical component of the rise of Islamic radicalism in the 21st century.

Kinross's writing regarding the 19th and 20th centuries is largely derived ultimately from European sources, particularly diplomatic traffic from the various European ambassadors posted to the Sublime Porte.  These dispatches tend to overexaggerate both the power of the European states as well as the backwardsness of the Turks, to the detriment of his writing on the final days of the Empire.  Indeed, the final two chapters regarding the collapse of the Sultanate are the most unfulfilling, reading like a term paper rushed to conclusion to meet a deadline.

Overall, these comments should not distract from the fact that the book is generally well written and for the most part covers the major events of Ottoman history well.  It is just a shame that given the obvious aptitude Kinross had for writing that he could not have compiled a more comprehensive work.
3287325
This is not only a well-researched novel conveying a strong sense of time and place with gritty down to earth prose - what seems an insignificant mystery (alongside the deeper darker elements) has bearing on the eventual outcome of this story. That little something therefore adds an extra element many authors seek in setting their novels apart from others of similar ilk and of time setting. I highly recommend this novel for lovers of the 17th century who wish to step from the glitz and glamour of the Royal Court, and duly venture to the earthy environs where Gardy loo gives due warning of where one will be treading!

It is 1664: precisely 4 years having passed since the Restoration of Charles II to the English throne. Thus, the profligate courtly existence of outlandish and clandestine liaisons of a sexual bent disgusts many, not least men of strict religious beliefs who see Papists at every turn and fear their influence at court. None more so than within the dark narrow winding-streets of the working sector of London, where old Noll (Oliver Cromwell) and all he believed in, and fought for, is far from forgotten. What is more, the tragic death of a merchant-cum-trader seems of little interest to those who are not directly affected by his tragic demise, but his son Jasper soon discovers a covert underbelly of discontent strongly associated with Cromwells old Republican regime. All the while the mystery of the fathers death lingers, hauntingly so, and Jasper even begins to doubt his faith as he in turn unmasks political intrigues and shocking discoveries within in his own house. Amidst murder, madness and mayhem, Jasper finds love and dreams of a better future, but can he survive deceits and double deceits whilst covertly pledging allegiance to King and Country?
1587248
Every serious reader can use a panoramic single-volume history of Europe and its civilization.  Norman Davies' Europe: A History is absolutely sweeping in its scope, taking the reader from the Ice Age to the present day.  This book is beautifully written and despite the enormous ground that it covers, it maintains a strong narrative drive. Norman Davies is erudite and incredibly well read and each page bristles with interesting facts and despite the necessity of compressing so much history into thirteen hundred pages, there is a surprising amount of detail.  Like all good synthesizers, he has an eye for the telling anecdote, the little vignette that contributes to the narrative.  Davies' work has hundreds of such asides and his work is full of triumph and pathos, irony and humor - as it is the story of man and Western Civilization.  There are plenty of well-written sidebars that are short dissertations on historical figures, philosophical concepts, laws or wars, issues that may have distracted from the narrative, but that serve to illuminate the text.  Overall, Europe: A History is an exceptional work of brevity and compression. While few of us will read it from cover to cover, it's of great use for those of us who want  a single volume to refer to, to understand what an exceptional scholar feels is most important about historical events and epochs.
2944242
This book is simply wonderfully written, a novel based on historical research but a novel that is beautiful, draws you right in and is never boring. The author is a wordsmith of the first order, and it all flows. My only tiny critique is that occasionally (very) she gets didactic or explains what is coming next for example and not the best example: At the end of a vacation skiing, when Hemingway gets two telegrams saying his first novel will the published, Ms. McClain says that he will never again be unfamous (fine) and that the couple will never again be as happy (not fine because it ruins the flow of what will happen.) There are about ten of these expositions but that aside, there is a slow delicious prose that most anyone I can think of both male and female will love. Next to read "Moveable Feast" which I haven't read in decades. EXCELLENT
4579842
Here is a near-great novel on the building of a fictional cathedral in 12th century England.  It is full of passionate characters, full of plots and medieval politics, and full of bloodshed.  The characters themselves are some of the most engaging and accessible characters I have ever come across in a novel.  It's hard not to admire Prior Phillip's singular ambition, Tom and Jack's burning passion for the building of the cathedral, or Aliena's unflappable demeanor.  Yet the real star of the novel is the cathedral itself.  Almost everything and everyone in the novel is affected by the building of the new cathedral in Kingsbridge.  What's interesting too is that those who support the building of the cathedral are the most upstanding characters, despite their flaws (sins?) while those who oppose the cathedral are the most despicable characters despite some of their feigned religiosity.  Although Ken Follet says this is not a spiritual novel, this theme does seem to have some spiritual connotations to it.  And some of the details about cathedral building are riveting in and of themselves, even if you need an encyclopedia on cathedrals to understand some of the terms used.  However, there are a few things that hold this back from being a great novel: many great characters never get their full due.  In particular, you never get to see things through Bishop Waleran Bigod's eyes despite him being one of the great villains of the novel.  Ellen, like Waleran, is an interesting character who appears on and off despite being one of the most interesting women in the novel.  And there are many others who kind of appear and then disappear, as if they were there only plot devices used to serve a specific function rather than as characters in their own right.  Also, while the overall structure of the novel is quite good, there are points where the timeline seems to jump ahead to the next major political fight rather than to stay and reflect on the day-to-day challenges of building the cathedral and running a burgeoning priory and town.  The ending also felt out of place with the overall story.  While I had a huge geek-gasm seeing the murder of Thomas Becket from Prior Philip's eyes, by that time the cathedral was all but finished and there was hardly any need for that last bit of effort on everyone's part.  Had Follett been able to weave the theme of rule-of-law vs. rule-by-might more intricately into the story, perhaps it would have worked.  But really, it felt like a 70 page epilogue.  Still, this is a towering historical epic that has opened my eyes to a new perspective on cathedrals and may do the same for you.
4187593
A. G. Macdonell's seminal opus is the exception to a rather substandard writing career. However, his deliberate effort and enthusiasm shines through with this extraordinary tale of high adventure. Told with a contagiously dashing prose, witty observations, and unapologetic humor, Macdonell brings the tensions of the times to life through his articulately sketched characters. And what characters they were! If Napoleon had generals with similar skill levels of those of either Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, there's no telling how far his successes would have reached, nor how long they could have been sustained. But that's the point that Macdonell almost uniquely makes throughout his narrative thread: that an army that inherently relied on standouts from the Enlightenment for its glory was also undone by the same tenacity of spirit that engenders all rebels, pirates, and smugglers to return to their roots as individual crusaders led by their own motives.
4805839
Jiles' research gives this novel amazing historical depth. The primary and secondary characters are so believable that I almost felt like I might have met them. The humble resourcefulness and courage of protagonist, Britt Johnson, makes me wish there were a series of books about him. Best of all, though, is Jiles' writing. She creates vivid landscapes, sickening violence, poignant longings--all with beautifully lean, almost plain, prose. I'm looking forward to reading more of her historical novels.
1809937
Mike Crawshaw reveals delightful talent for confecting a galloping historical novel centred on events surrounding the Thirty Years War. His protagonist, caught up in self-doubt on occasion, nonetheless, is destined for greater things, begun during Weaponsmith, and cotinued in subsequent books.

The author enriches his work with a wealth of historical detail, and a fine grasp of 17th century warfare. The 'Wnter Queen', daughter of James IV/I, is treated kindly - not necessarily appropriate following the plundering of the Netherland's resources which she and her king undertook while guests of Frederick IV at Den Haag.

A tiny nitpick, Mike: the Dutch and Flemish never played hockey, but rather, Kolf, in three variants. See Golf Through the Ages, 600 Years of Golfing Art for details. Sub-editorial errors were minimal - a huge relief when confronted by the semi-illiterate garbage that floods digital publishing, today. Well done!