After Christmas I went to New Jersey tohelp my sister put on a 95th birthday party for our father, and of course while there I stopped at my favorite bookstores and picked up several books you might enjoy.

First, from Dover Press, $6.95, Cut and Assemble A Western Frontier Town. This includes 10 HO scale buildings enough to make your own western town for Foundry's and Dixon's Wild West Figures. Very nice.

Fenwick Travers and the Years of Empire by Raymond M Saunders is a very good read, if you enjoy Flashman you should love this book. Takes place in Arizona then West Point to Cuba and San Juan Hill then off to the Boxer Rebellion. The book is a bit slow to begin but really picks up speed when he gets to Arizona in the Army. As with Flashy Travers has trouble keeping his pants on around ladies. Great read.

Empires of Sand by David Ball takes you into French society during the Franco-Prussian war then into the Sahara with the Tuaregs. There are so many great scenario ideas here I'm going to have to reread this and take notes. A great tale of adventure.

From the travel section comes Kenya: The First Explorers by Nigel Pavitt. The contemporary black and white line drawings are great as is the text but the color photographs really make this worth the sale price of $10. East Africa Handbook 1999 by Michael Hodd ($25) will come in handy for my German colonial campaign in East Africa as will Lonely Planet's Kenya Travel Atlas 1:1000000 ($15), and a Kenya Tanzania Uganda map at 1:2000000 ($11). The latter is a folded map that I can chart my campaign on. All these maps and book will give me details I will have trouble finding elsewhere, in particular the 1891 map of downtown Zanzibar will be very helpful, as will the other city maps.

From Shire Publications, Cromwell House, Church Street, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire HP27 9AA, Great Britain come two interesting books. The first is Discovering British Regimental Traditions by Ian F W Beckett ( £ 7.99) and contains 27 short chapters and three appendices one on regimental museums and two on regimental lineages. All in all a good brief history of the British Army. The second is Early Armoured Cars by E. Bartholomew ( £ 2.99) has 32 pages full of great photos and good information. I believe Beckett also has a book through Shire entitled Victoria's Wars History in Camera from Second Burma War 1852 through Tibet 1904. Good text and great photos.