Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens

Book Description

They are tiny. They are tall. They are gray. They are green. They survey our world with enormous glowing eyes. To conduct their shocking experiments, they creep in at night to carry humans off to their spaceships. Yet there is no evidence that they exist at all. So how could anyone believe he or she was abducted by aliens? Or want to believe it?

To answer these questions, psychologist Susan Clancy interviewed and evaluated "abductees"--old and young, male and female, religious and agnostic. She listened closely to their stories--how they struggled to explain something strange in their remembered experience, how abduction seemed plausible, and how, having suspected abduction, they began to recollect it, aided by suggestion and hypnosis.

Clancy argues that abductees are sane and intelligent people who have unwittingly created vivid false memories from a toxic mix of nightmares, culturally available texts (abduction reports began only after stories of extraterrestrials appeared in films and on TV), and a powerful drive for meaning that science is unable to satisfy. For them, otherworldly terror can become a transforming, even inspiring experience. "Being abducted," writes Clancy, "may be a baptism in the new religion of this millennium." This book is not only a subtle exploration of the workings of memory, but a sensitive inquiry into the nature of belief.

Customer Reviews:

Not science.......2007-09-07

This is a big and important subject. The question is, are tens of thousands of people all over the planet, all reporting uncannily similar experiences, in minute and corroborating detail, all suffering from some mysterious mass delusion where all the small details match, or are we dealing with a real, hard, empirical phenomenon?

A number of well researched works exist on this subject, where the author has in each case thoroughly interviewed and screened alleged abductees, researched the reported events in detail, visited the site and gathered forensic evidence, interviewed third party witnesses where people have been reported missing for several hours, and where resulting bruises and entry marks on the body of the subject have been examined by medical practitioners. A large number of abduction cases involve significant sightings of unidentified ariel craft reported and corroborated by multiple witnesses, marks and traces on the ground and even film of the events. A number of cases of multiple abduction exist, where the testimonies of different witnesses to the events corroborate precisely, and where people who do not even know each other are returned to different addresses wearing someone else's clothes. All this is thoroughly researched, on record in the literature. Whatever the cause of these tens of thousands of abduction cases, we are obviously dealing with a real, hard, empirical phenomenon which needs further thorough scientific research and some real answers.

This book does not address any of the evidence. Clancy gained her subjects by putting ads in newspapers and inviting any deluded or attention-seeking odd-ball to come in off the street and be a 'test subject'. You might think that a scientist would pursue the hard, proven cases where multiple witnesses were involved, where UFO sightings accompanying the abduction have been recorded by third party witnesses and where the subject was intensively and scientifically screened to rule out attention-seeking fantasists. You might, but in Clancy's case you would be wrong.

This is a useless, weak, irrelevant book which adds nothing to the study of a major world wide phenomenon. It is not science, though it pretends to be. The author decides in advance that the phenomenon does not exist, in direct contradiction of a large body of hard evidence, then determines to 'prove' it's basically all in the mind of the self-selected, unscreened 'abductees'. There is no review of the existing literature, no examination of the very considerable body of data accumulated by genuine, scientific researchers and the 'conclusions' of the 'study' were clearly decided in advance.

As someone once remarked, 'Science is not always what scientists do.' It's true in this case. This is a disgrace to science, and Harvard should be ashamed to have their name associated with it.

If you want to read a serious, scientific examination of this phenomenon, where evidence is examined thoroughly and rigorous scientific methods are used, then research works by Budd Hopkins, John Mack, David M. Jacobs, Nick Pope, Jenny Randles, Linda Moulton Howe and others.

Put Clancy's irrelevant trash in the shredder, where it belongs.

Close Encounters with Alien Abductions.......2007-05-14

Susan Clancy, the author of Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens, has probably gotten more personally involved with alien abductees than any other skeptic. Clancy is frank in her belief that extraterrestrial visitation is exceeding unlikely and that the alien abduction experience can be explained more plausibly in terms of sleep paralysis with hallucinations, the availability of cultural scripts, and the development of false memories through hypnotic time regression and other guided imagery techniques. Nevertheless, Clancy is not out to debunk the alien abduction myth, nor does she try to disabuse her interviewees of their delusions. Rather, her purpose, as the title of her book indicates, is to probe the psychological and cultural factors that lead some people to believe they have had encounters with extraterrestrials.

One theme that runs through the book is the observation that alien abductees are, in all other respects, very ordinary people. Clancy's interviewees, as a group, exhibited the same general ranges of education, socio-economic status and religious upbringing as the population at large. Even more importantly, her sample of alien abductees were no more likely to be psychotic than the general population. This observation is an important counterargument to the pat explanation that those who claim to have been abducted by aliens are simply crazy. Nor can abduction claims be explained in terms of publicity seeking, since many abductees are reluctant to share their experiences with the general public.

There is one aspect, though, in which abductees are different from the general population. On personality tests, they score higher on a characteristic called schizotypy. Schizotypic personalities are prone to fantasy and magical thinking. They also have more difficulty distinguishing real from imagined events than the general population, and they are more likely to hold paranormal beliefs. In addition, they may be more likely to develop full-blown schizophrenia, and there is evidence for a genetic link between schizotypy and schizophrenia. On the other hand, schizotypic personality is not necessarily maladaptive; in fact, artists, poets and other highly creative people generally score high on the schizotypy dimension. However, there are plenty of people with schizotypic tendencies that do not develop beliefs in alien abductions, so there must be other causal factors involved.

Clancy was struck by the clarity of the memories and the intensities of the feelings that many of her interviewees had about their supposed abduction experience. It was clear that they had had some sort of traumatic experience, and that they were trying to find some "reasonable" explanation that fit their memories and the strong emotions they felt. In most cases, the traumatic experience was consistent with the condition known as sleep paralysis. During REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when most dreaming occurs, the body is paralyzed, presumably to prevent the acting out of dream content. Usually, the paralysis ends when REM does, but sometimes when a person awakes from REM sleep, the paralysis continues for a minute or so. Waking up paralyzed is terrifying enough, but oftentimes this experience will be accompanied by a crushing sensation on the chest and an apparent inability to breathe. Furthermore, the dream content during the REM sleep may continue as the sleeper awakens, leading to hallucinations. Feelings of floating or spinning are common as well. The experience is bizarre, but to the person not prone to magical or paranormal thinking, it will likely be interpreted as nothing more than a momentary mental aberration. However, to the paranormally inclined, the experience fits the alien abduction scenario to a tee.

Another theme running through the book is the idea of the alien-abduction scenario as a cultural script. Clancy argues that the "the common features of the alien-abduction stories ... are not evidence for validity" but rather come from "shared cultural knowledge." She notes that alien-abduction claims are mainly limited to North America, and that alien abduction reports did not begin until after "they were featured on TV and in the movies." In particular, Clancy maintains that the first North American alien abduction report, the Betty and Barney Hill case, bears a striking resemblance to the plot of an episode of The Outer Limits, down to the physical description of the extraterrestrials, as well as to the plot of the movie Invaders from Mars. Betty Hill, who was a flying saucer aficionado, had seen both shows. In fact, a common element in the development of abduction memories is a prior interest in alien abductions. That is, abductees already know what is supposed to happen to them before their first episode of sleep paralysis or hypnotic regression, and so the emotional events they experience are easily molded into a standard alien-abduction script.

The cultural and historical aspects of the alien-abduction experience could have been better developed in this book. Clancy does spend several pages tracing the history of the belief in extraterrestrials--all the way to the ancient Greeks, in fact. However, the existence of life elsewhere in the universe is not really relevant to the question of alien abductions; given the vastness of the universe, there is at least some probability that intelligent life has evolved elsewhere. But if our understanding of physics is correct, it is extremely improbable that extraterrestrials could ever travel such vast distances to get here, regardless of how advanced their technology is. And even if they had a way to span the distance, as Clancy asks, "Wouldn't you think these mentally and technologically superior beings would have something more interesting to do ... than to hang around North America kidnapping its ... inhabitants, in order to do the same experiments over and over again?" I would also ask: Even if they got here somehow, why would they want to have sex with us? For it is the sexual component of the alien abduction script that links it culturally and historically with phenomena such as the incubus and succubus visitations of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe as well as Satanic ritual abuse and recovered memory syndrome, two other sex-related cultural scripts of late twentieth-century North American paranormal belief.

Abducted provides a good introduction to skeptical research on alien abductions, in particular the work done over the past eight years by Clancy and her colleagues at Harvard University. In this book, Clancy vividly portrays the human side of this line of research, which has necessarily been excluded from her academic publications. The book also provides the layperson with a good portrait of the day-to-day grind of psychological research. Abducted is not the definitive book on the alien-abduction experience (not enough research has been done for that book to be written yet), but it is well worth reading for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the psychological and cultural factors that can compel people to believe they have been in contact with extraterrestrial beings.

Insufficient research, poorly written (refering to both style and the blatant grammatical and spelling errors...).......2007-02-23

Susan Clancy's Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens explores exactly what the title states; however, not in any depth required of a serious scientific study. Clancy does an insufficient amount of research, writes six chapters stating what she could have easily stated in one, and proceeds to insult her readers in assuming they are unable to perform the simplest of deductions.
Clancy began her research of "abductees" by placing ads in newspapers reading, "Have you been abducted by aliens?" Surely, a study of this nature being conducted at Harvard should be approached with more caution. Any sane person would assume that the ad is some kind of joke, or even an experiment conducted by an "abductee" herself. The wording alone would only attract strange people, which would then further the assumption that anyone claiming to have been abducted is not normal, or sane for that matter. In order to be taken seriously, Clancy should have chosen more appropriate wording to get her point across. After reading the footnote, I found that Clancy had actually been requested to change the wording in the ads to something more professional. So far, Clancy is off to a very rough start.
During her research, Clancy makes it a point to consider each "abductee's" story as a serious matter. She believes these stories must be taken seriously in order to properly approach the issues of how and why people believe that they have been abducted by aliens. Clancy's research consists of many interviews with many different types of people; however, for something Clancy takes so seriously, that is an insufficient amount of research. She never searches for hard evidence, or even asks for it. She makes no visits to their homes to see what kind of environment they live in, among other things. Any conclusion drawn solely on the accounts of people who are "out there" to begin with is nonsense. From this moment on, it is nearly impossible to take any of Clancy's deductions seriously.
The first chapter of the book is called "How do you wind up studying aliens?" I highly doubt that anyone who buys a book titled Abducted is hoping to get twenty pages on how the author stumbled upon such a topic. I read the book to learn about Clancy's research and conclusions, not to learn how she got into such a field. Each chapter thereafter says practically the exact same thing, with exception to some of the explanations that Clancy gives for rare varying abduction stories. She is excruciatingly repetitive in stating that their experiences must be from sleep paralysis, hypnotism, or simply having watched too much TV. Clancy spends a great deal of the book recalling a countless number of abduction stories that, by the third chapter, seem to all generally be the same. The only time the book is of any interest is when she finally gets to her point and tells the reader what has, for no reason at all, taken her so long to say. An example of this would be chapter three in its entirety, where the point is that hypnosis could distort and alter memory. I highly doubt that she needed an entire chapter to get that idea across.
Which brings me to my next point. Clancy, throughout the book, proceeds to insult her readers in assuming they are unable to perform the simplest of deductions. She even seems to assume that her readers do not even know the most basic of scientific terms. I am only twenty-one and reading my first book on alien abductions, and even I know every single term she so explicitly explained eight times each. Clancy will clearly explain, step by step, how she deduced from an abduction story that the "abductee" must have been experiencing sleep paralysis, which after hearing the definition so many times, I, along with the majority of her readers, could have done in my sleep. It seems as though Clancy wrote her book with an incompetent audience in mind. Her writing makes Carl Sagan's writing look like Latin!
Overall, I would not recommend this book. I was bored the entire way through which is quite terrible considering the book's length. Most of what I learned from reading Clancy's Abductions: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens I could have learned from a five minute conversation with my high school science teacher. Clancy not only does insufficient research, causing her conclusions to be nonsense, but she repeats the same ideas over and over as if she has nothing else to say. She spends the majority of the book explaining terms and pointing out the most obvious of deductions, which I find rather insulting. Of course, the icing on the cake is the two blatant errors, one spelling and one grammatical, made in the writing, which ironically enough, is the only part of the book I actually enjoyed.

Poorly reasoned and researched.......2006-12-08

While I would thoroughly endorse and support Susan Clancy's belief that alien abduction is not a real phenomenom, she fails to give the subject the scientific attention one would expect from a psychologist. Her research is shoddy, amounting to soliciting abduction stories from crazies that answer newspaper personal ads. No interviews or research from psychologists treating people with abduction delusions was given, and she failed to identify the psychological causes for such phenomenom that other authors and peer-reviewed journals have covered, ignoring any psychological cause other than psychosis or sleep paralysis. A much better guide to the topic is "Abductions and Aliens: What's Really Going On? " a book written by a psycholgist who has done a literature survey, and has actual case histories to evaluate.
Abduction delusions are real, and they need real treatment. Clancy offers no such coverage of treatment options, or any real psychological or scientific research. She took her phd candidate thesis and tried to make a book out of it. I don't think we'll see a "Doctor Clancy" writing again any time soon.

Fascinating and Convincing.......2006-12-03

This book is well=written and . . .contrary to the opinion of the most critical reviewers here.... well=reasoned. Those who believe they have been abducted by aliens are making an extraordinary claim, and THEY have the burden of proof, not the skeptics. They need to provide hard, fast evidence - but all they can provide are impressions and anecdotes. Like most people, they do not seem prepared to subject this experience to what Clancy calls the "cranky" discipline of true scientific inquiry. Above and beyond the claim of alien abduction is their insistence that both the scientific and journalist community are conspiring to suppress evidence that alien abductions are real. Utter nonsense, as Clancy effectively argues. Her central theory is that those who claim this experience find satisfaction in it and an explanation for life's mysteries and disappointments. It is an explanation that makes a great deal of sense. The book is serious and yet entertaining. (Yes, it is possible for a book to be both!) We learn so much about what true scientific inquiry is, the nature of human memory formation, and about the deep psychological need we have to make sense of the world. And although alien abductees obviously can't see it this way, Clancy is actually quite compassionate and fair in how she talks about them and what might be behind these claims.

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Why was this published?
A mediocre Alien story at best

Aliens: Kidnapped
Jim Woodring , and Francisco Solano Lopez
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1569713723

Book Description

In the dark reaches of the universe lies a remote planet that holds both forbidden pleasures and unspeakable horrors. For three naive smugglers, it`s also a place to unload a deadly cargo: an Alien egg. But something about this particular egg is scaring off the black marketeers. And when it hatches, the nightmare will have just begun.

Customer Reviews:

Why was this published?.......2007-07-03

After a great start and several years of successful creativity in Alines comics, Dark Horse began putting out some real stinkers in the mid to late 90's, of which Kidnapped is the absolute worst. The art is fairly poor, and the story mostly unoriginal with the added fault of being less of an Aliens tale and more of a viral outbreak story. The idea of the Aliens themselves being a sort of terrible macro-virus already exists in the Aliens' universe of fiction, and therefore doesn't really need an additional contagious element to it. Also, the flesh-eating-virus in this story is portayed as pink goo, which is not only not-scary but pretty silly. The characters just follow the pink trail around as they try to get it through their thick heads that something may be wrong. There's lots of great material out there adding to the Aliens mythos, but this story should just be ignored lest it detracts from the whole.

A mediocre Alien story at best.......2001-06-22

Most of the Aliens comic books have been great so far. However, this particular story is not very interesting. It begins when a band of smugglers go in to obtain some eggs from a Queen's nest. When they arrive, they find that their comrades have all been killed, but also entirely stripped of their flesh and muscles, leaving nothing but bone behind. The smugglers intrude on the angry queen, and after a brief scuffle, take one single egg that had been left untouched. There is something odd about this egg however, as it is always secreting a strange substance.

When the egg is smuggled into a resort town on a distant planet, a playboy inadvertantly becomes the host for the facehugger in the infected egg. After he is invited by a super-model to join her on a trip to her own personal resort, all hell breaks loose. The alien egg had a flesh-eating virus. Shortly after the chestburster hatches, it begins to spread the disease all across the resort.

Definitely not the best Alien comic i've read. There is no real action, and the Alien doesnt live long enough to survive past the chestburster stage. The story itself is also not very good. It is a little convoluted and silly. All in all, an Aliens short that definitely doesnt deliver based on the high expectations set from previous Alien comics. This was a 2-part comic book and this book is the collaboration of the two. Of you are an Alien fan and feel that you must own all the Alien comics for collector's purposes, then by all means buy it. If you are looking for a new, interesting and action-packed story like all previous Aliens comics, then this is definitely not worth buying.

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Awakening: Chronicle One-Kidnapped to an Alien Planet (Awakening (Writers Club))
Alexander Degrate
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0595160115

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Ever wake up and not know where you are, or how you got there and you’re not sure where home is?

“Unbelievable! I’ll tell you what is unbelievable, my sister and I were on vacation with our mother in Roswell, and that’s the last thing either of us can remember. The next thing we know we wake up in that cave with you, Lycus and Lady Bellmany. You tell Belle and me we are on another planet, but even you don’t know how or why we are here. If we don’t know where we are, our parents sure don’t know where we are. Do you know how worried they must be?!” Tears were streaming down Sam’s face, and her voice was cracking, “You tell us we have to stick close to you to be safe, but you won’t explain exactly why. On top of all that, you tell us that Rikka is related to us, except she is almost the color of snow, has elf-like ears and levitates in midair. You make us responsible for her by making me her mother. Don’t you think it is about time you laid all your cards on the table?!” Sam screamed at Dair.

How to be kidnapped by UFOlk: (and other escapes)

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How to be kidnapped by UFOlk: (and other escapes)
Dan Clements
Manufacturer: CLEMCO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00072TPT8

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Homer's "Odyssey" for kids

Kidnapped in Space

Manufacturer: Xerox Education Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000AMKKOO

Product Description

While on a camping trip Dylan Lee wanders off exploring and gets kidnapped and taken on an outerspace adventure.

Customer Reviews:

Homer's "Odyssey" for kids.......2006-07-17

Title says it all. It's not a bad way to introduce a child to the basic story of the Odyssey, but why not find a book of Greek myths and let them read the real thing?

Alien abduction analysis.(Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens)(Book Review): An article from: Skeptical Inquirer

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Alien abduction analysis.(Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens)(Book Review): An article from: Skeptical Inquirer
Terence M. Hines
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Skeptical Inquirer, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 950 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Alien abduction analysis.(Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens)(Book Review)
Author: Terence M. Hines
Publication: Skeptical Inquirer (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 30 Issue: 2 Page: 51(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Kidnapped by aliens.(Soundbite)(Interview) : An article from: Reason

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Kidnapped by aliens.(Soundbite)(Interview) : An article from: Reason
Kerry Howley
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Reason, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2006. The length of the article is 493 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Kidnapped by aliens.(Soundbite)(Interview)
Author: Kerry Howley
Publication: Reason (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 37 Issue: 10 Page: 15(1)

Article Type: Interview

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Kidnapped by an alien: tales of UFO abductions. (Unidentified Flying Object) (Folklore: Maps and Territories): An article from: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics

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Kidnapped by an alien: tales of UFO abductions. (Unidentified Flying Object) (Folklore: Maps and Territories): An article from: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics
Joyce Bynum
Manufacturer: International Society for General Semantics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, published by International Society for General Semantics on March 22, 1993. The length of the article is 3231 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Alien kidnappings present an interesting comparison with folklore. A study of abductions by unidentified flying objects (UFOs) reveal that most accounts contain episodes of capture and examination by aliens, similar to that of human abduction by fairies or dwarfs. The most common themes in UFO abductions also have their equivalents in folklore and mythology which include physical ordeals, reproductive purposes and journeys into the unknown. Researchers attribute these similarities to the the oral dissemination of the tales and the parallelism between the victims' experiences.

Citation Details
Title: Kidnapped by an alien: tales of UFO abductions. (Unidentified Flying Object) (Folklore: Maps and Territories)
Author: Joyce Bynum
Publication: ETC.: A Review of General Semantics (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1993
Publisher: International Society for General Semantics
Volume: v50 Issue: n1 Page: p86(10)

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Lees is more?

Not the best for Midwest

A good reference book

Useful, portable, practical and fun, but pugnacious

Excellent Condensed Wine Guide

Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 2006 (Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book)
Hugh Johnson
Manufacturer: Mitchell Beazley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1840009454

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For everything there is a season, and in the world of wine the calendar is defined by bud break, fruit set, harvest, and the arrival of the latest edition of Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book. Celebrating the sale of more than 7 million copies of editions spanning a quarter century, the 2002 publication provides an updated addition to the prestigious and prolific wine writer's popular series of pocket-sized reference books. With delineated chapters--some merely a page long--Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book: 2002 follows a standard format: wine trend prognostication, a brief description of the current vintage (here the 2000 harvest), a reexamination of 1999, glossary of grape types, and food and wine matches. The book's bulk is composed of an alphabetical listing of short entries--mostly wineries--subdivided within geographical chapters. Johnson can be stylish, even witty (a lively Vernaccia pairs well with a dish of grey mullet: not the one "on the heads of aging rock stars"), but aside from the opening few pages, there's a decidedly ghostwritten feel to the proceedings. Indeed, the acknowledgments list over 40 "kind friends," including several regionally based wine writers, for their "special knowledge," most notably of some smaller producers. But for someone of Hugh Johnson's stature, to allow, once again, in the 2002 edition the Syrah grape to be identified as identical to Petite Sirah--friends, kind or not, shouldn't let friends get away with that sort of thing. --Tony Mason

Book Description

Now in its twenty-ninth year of publication, this book offers the current news on more than 6,000 wines, growers, and regions. With completely updated vintage information, recommended wines for current drinking, and star ratings, this is the only annual wine guide anyone will need. It has all the information necessary to help you select anything from a weekday wine for supper to a prestige vintage for investment, with a new section listing Hugh Johnson's personal recommendations. Also included are vintage charts, maps, and expert tasting notes. Hints on serving wine and matching wine with food complete the picture.

Customer Reviews:

Lees is more?.......2006-05-24

Last weekend my wife asked that I clear some of the debris out of the bookshelves in the library, and as I made my way through my wine books I found an edition of Hugh Johnson's 1990 Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine. Now this isn't exactly equivalent to stumbling on a first edition of Paradise Lost, but it's what passes for palpable excitement in my house. Just as I was sitting down to write a review of the 2006 Pocket Wine Book, this veritable antique magically appeared.

So I naturally set out to see what had changed in the past 16 years. The book is almost exactly the same dimensions-I guess pockets haven't changed much. It will still slip into an interior coat pocket, though it would probably feel somewhat unwieldy there given its 8" length.

How to contrast the two editions? I thought it might be fun to pick a Bordeaux chateau and see what HJ has to say 16 years apart. Let's do one that has no small amount of controversy around it these days, say Chateau Pavie.

1990. Splendidly sited first-growth of 100 acres on the slope of the Cotes. Typically rich and tasty St. E, particularly since 1982.

2006. Splendidly sited first-growth; 37 hectares of mid-slope on the Cotes. Great track record...this is new wave St. Emilion: thick, intense, sweet, mid-Atlantic and the subject of heated debate.

Plus ca change? Hardly. Other than the fact I have no idea what he means by mid-Atlantic (good with crab cakes?), this is what you can expect from the 2006 Pocket Book of Wine. It reminds me of the genie's description of his state in Disney's Alladin-"incredible cosmic power, itty-bitty living space." Translation for this guide: incredible density of information in a tiny package. Also not so sure about the conversion to the metric system, but maybe I wasn't paying attention when the Brits switched over to the dark side.

Let's just pick one more comparison of '90 and '06 at random before we move on. I opened the '06 Guide about 2/3 of the way through and landed on Croatia. There I found a page-and-a-half of definitions and producer descriptions for a region from which it may well be another 16 years before I actually get to try a wine-or want to. HJ has been there and done that. By way of contrast, the 1990 Guide has but two pages dedicated to all of Yugoslavia, including Croatia. There's no separate heading for Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro or Macedonia like you'll find in `06. Now that's progress.

1990. Dingac. Heavy sweetish red from local Plavic (grape), specialty of the mid-Dalmatian coast.

2006. Dingac. Vineyard designation on Peljesac's steep southern slope. Made from partially dried Plavic Mali, producing a full-bodied jammy red but emerging as a robust and dry red that supports oak and bottle aging. Highly esteemed and expensive. Look for Bura, Kiridzija, Matusko, Milicic, Skaramuca..

So what have we learned? A bunch. Much has changed (understatement of the year) in Croatia, and HJ has chronicled it with both great precision and concision. You get the geography, the grape variety, the nature of the wine and notable producers in a couple of terse phrases. That's hard to do.

What's the secret to this book? It's just crammed with facts, like force-feeding a goose to get foie gras. Here's a partial inventory of what's contained in this diminutive Dionysian dynamo (I must be getting tired):

Vintage reports on 2004 and 2003. Summaries of grape varieties both great and obscure. Wine and food suggestions including a section on cheeses. Suggested wines to drink in 2006. Sections on what must be every wine-growing region in the world, including high-level maps, regional designations, vintage charts, producer profiles, appellation and vineyard descriptions, and terminology definitions. For every standalone producer (eg Antinori): star rating from 1-4; concise color commentary calling out any particularly fine/consistent wines. For a single site, eg Bordeaux chateau: commune, star rating, recent good vintages, vintages for current drinking, brief comments, second wines. A quick reference vintage chart across regions; a small glossary of technical terms; serving temperature recommendations; and an explanation of Hugh Johnson's idiosyncratic scoring system (best score=the whole vineyard, i.e. it's so good I'd just buy the whole damn thing) and more.

If I continue with this review it will soon be longer than the book itself. No doubt: it delivers on what it advertises. Sure it misses some ultra-fine details, but it would be a fantastic reference for someone who doesn't mind carrying it around, an ideal use case, for example, being one of those times you're stuck in an unfamiliar store and just want to find something that won't be awful. Or if you're not that knowledgeable about wine and are willing to suffer the ignominy of pulling out a relatively small and inconspicuous book while you peruse a restaurant wine list. Or if you have no freakin' idea what Ukrainian wine to drink while you're making pysanky, this is the book for you.

Not the best for Midwest.......2006-03-22

This pocket wine book reviews wines that are not readily available in the Midwest. If you live in California or New York, it may be a better option for you.

A good reference book.......2006-03-12

At its price and size, unequalled, year after year. I only wish the sections on states such as New York, Virginia, and North Carolina were more extensive, but one can only pack can so much information into a book of this size.

Useful, portable, practical and fun, but pugnacious.......2006-02-21

As a book, Hugh Johnson's annual Pocket Wine Book is a model of clarity. Wine buffs will find a long list of short but distinct entries, organized geographically and alphabetically within a country. There are also many tips on which wine goes with which food, the different ways to serve different wines, and descriptions of under appreciated and under publicized wines such as port and sherry.

Wine lovers know of the rivalry between wine critics Robert Parker and Hugh Johnson, and Johnson fans the flames with two pages poking fun at Parker's 100 point scale. To be frank it is hard not to agree that Johnson's system is better. A simple four star system to rate quality coupled with a highlight to show his own preferences. This strikes me as the correct level of precision for the topic.

However, this trivial dispute about how to rate wine overshadows the real disagreement between the two men, which is about how to make wine. Johnson believes in terroir (geography) and technology while Parker believes in traditional manufacture and grape varieties. Unfortunately, Johnson hardly ever acknowledges that particular dispute with Parker and completely lacks generosity to opposite viewpoints on these two issues. That I tend to see things Johnson's way does not make it less of a pity to me. The last failing costs the book one star. Or perhaps I should give it 96.5 points.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

Excellent Condensed Wine Guide.......2005-07-24

I have been buying this book for many years and I am always impressed with how much information is in such a small book.

Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 2006 - 10 Copy Counterpack

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Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book 2006 - 10 Copy Counterpack
Hugh Johnson
Manufacturer: Mitchell Beazley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spirits | Drinks & Beverages | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0020748450

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